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BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Jan 2 (Reuters): A week after a tsunami devastated Indian Ocean shores, aid workers and troops battled desperate conditions and the aftermath of torrential rain to bury rotting bodies and deliver relief to survivors.
A multinational force of aid workers, military aircraft and ships brought aid to stricken areas of South Asia, but urgently needed supplies piled up at airports and warehouses, blocked by the destruction of roads, trucks and phone lines.
Seven days after the massive undersea quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered giant tsunami waves, relief pledges edged towards $2 billion with a death toll of nearly 127,000 expected to rise.
Days of heavy downpours hampering relief efforts in Sri Lanka let up, but they had grounded aid flights for a day and flash floods left the remnants of villages and refugee camps close to the coast cut off from supplies.
After the initial lax response of wealthy countries, the new year brought a generous about-turn with contributions doubling in a 24-hour period. Washington increased its pledge ten-fold to $350 million, while Japan vowed half a billion dollars.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will visit Indonesia, the hardest-hit country, Thursday and would probably issue a planned world appeal for more relief from there, officials said.
Supplies that had been stacked up at the airport in Banda Aceh, for want of onward transport, were reaching the city itself to which many survivors have fled, but little was making it by land to people in more remote areas.
In Sri Lanka, the worst-hit nation after Indonesia, the United States is despatching up to 1,500 Marines and a mini aircraft carrier with some 20 helicopters to assist in relief and reconstruction of the island where heavy rains have compounded the misery and hampered aid efforts.
UNICEF chief Carol Bellamy said special attention should be paid to children as relief began to reach survivors.
In Thailand, the tsunami killed 4,800 people, roughly half of them foreign tourists. Sweden, which has lost hundreds of its nationals, said the total number of Western tourists killed in Thailand will be over 3,300 and could exceed 4,600.
Hundreds of Germans, Danes, Norwegians and Italians are among the missing.
Relatives and friends flying to Asia in the hope of finding loved ones scoured gruesome mosaics of photographs of distorted faces pinned on bulletin boards.
Xinhua adds from Geneva: The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned Saturday that first signs of potentially deadly diseases are threatening survivors in tsunami-hit areas in Asia.
There are increasing reports of diarrhea disease outbreaks in displaced persons' settlements in Sri Lanka and India, said David Nabarro, a top official of the Geneva-based WHO.
Speaking to reporters, Nabarro called for continued preventive measures and treatments. "What we need to do is to make sure that we continue to distribute all rehydration salts and treatment for diarrhea and we continue to do our work in sanitation and water supplies," he said.
Noting the international operation is "incredibly strong" and relief distribution has started and gone on pretty well in Sri Lanka, Nabarro cautioned that it needs a few more days before the WHO can say there is no danger of major outbreaks of disease.
AFP message says from the United Nations: With two billion dollars pledged after the Asian tsunami disaster, the United Nations (UN) and aid agencies are now grappling with difficulties in getting help quickly to those who need it.
Many airstrips in the region have been washed out, forcing the relief effort to turn to what Egeland called "a new and alternative way" of bringing in aid, largely through the use of helicopters.
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