MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

ANNAN launches nearly $1 billion appeal for aid to tsunami victims.

Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary-general, on Thursday appealed for immediate aid of $977m to pay for humanitarian relief to around 5m people affected by tsunamis that swept acoss the Indian Ocean on December 26.

Mr Annan, speaking at an emergency donors summit in Jakarta, acknowledged the global coordination of aid for tsunami victims over the past few days, but highlighted the need for rapid assistance. While governments, individuals and companies around the world have already pledged more than the sum he was asking for, with the latest estimate at $5bn, he said it was essential that pledges were converted into cash.

Mr Annan said the $977m would cover the costs of a specific set of programmes for the next six months, including $229m for food and agriculture, $222m for shelter and other non-food needs, and $122m for healthcare.

The disaster killed around 150,000 from Indonesia to Somalia, leaving half a million injured, more than 1m displaced and 2m in need of food, Mr Annan said.

"We will never know the exact magnitude of how many men, women and children perished on December 26, and in the eleven days that have passed since then. The real figure is likely to exceed 150,000," he added.

"It seems sometimes like a nightmare from which we are still trying to awake. What happened on December 26 was an unprecedented global catastrophe. It requires an unprecedented global response."

On Wednesday, the World Health Organisation said it needed $60m to prevent outbreaks of water-borne and other diseases, which put another 150,000 people at "extreme risk".

Governments around the world have competed to offer higher and higher sums for disaster recovery, with pledges far exceeding both the immediate needs and the capacity of affected countries to absorb aid.

Some aid organisations, while welcoming the outpouring of money, say it is vital to ensure that interest is maintained over the long period of reconstruction, and that other less prominent disasters, such as the AIDS epidemic in Africa, are not forgotten.

Lee Hsien-loong, Singapore's prime minister, told the conference that $5bn was a large amount, but not excessive when compared with the task at hand.

"Countries need to house and shelter the homeless, repair schools and clinics, restart local economies and rebuild shattered communities," he said.

Mr Lee also said proper coordination was essential.

"Otherwise, with so many donors giving to so many different countries, the lines will cross and the total may well add up to less than the sum of its parts."

He called on Mr Annan to appoint a special representative to coordinate the relief effort and work with institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

"Past tragedies have shown that natural disasters leave a long aftermath but the world's attention span is, unfortunately, short," Mr Lee said.

The summit, which is also likely to discuss a debt repayment moratorium for affected countries, is hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Those present include Colin Powell, US secretary of state; Junichiro Koizumi, Japanese prime minister, Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao and British foreign secretary Jack Straw.

Upon arrival in Jakarta, Rodrigo Rato, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said on Thursday that the Washington-based organisation had prepared up to $1bn in emergency loans for the worst affected countries. "This financing ... could be made available quickly and without an IMF program," he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Mr Powell said on Thursday that the "core group" of nations announced by US President George W. Bush to channel aid to victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami had been dissolved after only eight days as the UN took control of the international relief effort.

Mr Bush's initiative on December 29 - which at first included only the US, India, Japan and Australia - appeared to have been prompted by an accusation by Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, that the US was "stingy". The UN was included the next day after Mr Bush was criticised for sidelining the UN in a rescue operation involving dozens of countries.

UN officials and Washington's allies have tried to avoid public criticism of the core group during its short life.

Mr Powell told the summit: "The core group helped to catalyse the international response. Having served its purpose, it will ... now fold itself into the broader coordination efforts of the United Nations."

Top 10 tsunami aid donors:

Australia: ($m) 765 Germany: 665 Japan: 500 US: 350 World Bank : 250 Norway: 182 UK: 96 Italy: 93 Canada: 80 Sweden: 75