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| Sunday, 2 January 2005 |
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Aid tops billion dollars as disaster toll to reach 150,000 BANDA ACEH, Indones Saturday (AFP) Aid pledges for Asia's tsunami victims topped 1.1 billion dollars Saturday on a tide of global New Year sympathy, but there was no respite for survivors holding mass burials as the death toll edged towards 126,000. The United Nations warned the numbers killed by the wall of water could rise to 150,000, with the vast majority in Indonesia, although it said the true figure may never be known nearly a week after mammoth waves tore apart the coasts of the Indian Ocean. The world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years that triggered the tsunamis has set off a chain reaction of donations, with governments and the public racing to contribute to help the millions of homeless. "We are now counting new pledges by the hour. We're now between 1.1 billion and 1.2 billion dollars," the UN's emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, told reporters in New York. President George W. Bush, facing allegations at home and abroad that the United States was "stingy," upped US assistance ten-fold for victims of the "epic disaster" to 350 million dollars. "The disaster around the Indian Ocean continues to grow both in size and scope," Bush said in a statement. China has promised a politically significant 60.5 million dollars, making it the biggest donor after the United States, Britain and Sweden - the European country that looks likely to suffer the biggest death toll in the disaster. |
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