Indonesia's Earthquake - Tsunami Catastrophe 26th December 2004

Donations can be made to the various appeals at the following web sites

Disasters Emergency Committee
http://www.dec.org.uk/

The Disasters Emergency Committee - www.dec.org.uk - is an umbrella group of UK aid organisations - including Action Aid, British Red Cross and Oxfam - working to provide clean water, food and shelter to thousands. To call from the UK, dial 0870 60 60 900. The Disasters Emergency Committee. is operating as the main focus for donations to various charities in the U.K. - for full detail please visit this web site.

British Red Cross tsunami appeal
http://www.bluepeter.redcross.org.uk/tsappeal/appeal.asp

Oxfam
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/give_to_oxfam/donate/asiaquake1204.htm

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
http://www.ifrc.org/index.asp

The UN has warned that supplies are urgently needed to support the survivors and to try and prevent disease which, it says, could double the death toll.

The Disasters Emergency Committee - www.dec.org.uk - is an umbrella group of UK aid organisations - including Action Aid, British Red Cross and Oxfam - working to provide clean water, food and shelter to thousands. To call from the UK, dial 0870 60 60 900.

The United Nations World Food Programme - www.wfp.org - is seeking donations to feed victims of the earthquake.

Medecins Sans Frontieres - www.msf.org - is sending aid workers to the region, focusing on medical care for survivors and displaced people after the rescue operations.

The United Nations Children's Fund, Unicef - www.unicef.org.uk - is working to meet the "urgent needs of hundreds of thousands of people" affected by the tsunami disaster.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR - www.unhcr.ch - which has been helping victims of conflicts in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, is delivering relief supplies to tsunami survivors in both countries.

Save the Children - www.savethechildren.org.uk - has already flown a plane out to Sri Lanka carrying plastic sheeting for temporary shelter, tents to run children's services from and essentials such as clothing and cooking utensils.

Anti-poverty organisation Care International - www.care.org - has already provided food for thousands of affected people in Sri Lanka.

Cafod, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development - www.cafod.org.uk - is working with partners across Asia to provide shelter, food aid and medical assistance, and assessing what further relief is needed.

The Red Cross, with its sister charity the Red Crescent, is supplying blankets, cooking utensils and other crucial goods. It has had to set up a new site - www.ifrc.org - because of the unprecedented demand from people wanting to make donations.

The Hindu Forum Disaster Relief Task Force - www.hinduforum.org - comprises 50 organisations and is raising money, clothes and medicines. Donations can be made online or by calling the ISKCON Disaster Appeal on 01923 856848 or Sewa International on 0116 261 0303.

Christian Aid - www.christianaid.org.uk - has already allocated £250,000 from its emergency fund to help the victims of this disaster but says more money is needed.

Christian charity Tearfund - www.tearfund.org - and its partners in Sri Lanka and India are helping devastated fishing communities and coastal villages get back on their feet.

Islamic Relief - www.islamic-relief.com - has also launched an appeal to provide medical supplies, tents and sanitation facilities for those affected.

The Islamic Aid Emergency Relief Fund - www.islamicaid.org.uk - aims to provide immediate relief and long-term support to people in the affected areas.

Another Islamic charity, Muslim Hands - www.muslimhands.org - is collecting money and sending volunteers to help in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Medair - www.medair.org - is providing emergency support to agencies with a long-term presence in Sri Lanka and its medical experts are assessing the likelihood of malaria and diarrhoea.

Handicap International - www.handicap-international.org.uk- is focusing its efforts on helping displaced people, disabled people and vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, elderly people and children. It is trying to raise £425,000.

World Vision - www.worldvision.org.uk - has also launched an appeal and has already delivered relief goods to thousands.

Concern - www.concern.net - is working with local partners to meet the needs of families in the devastated coastal villages of Tamil Nadu, the worst-affected state in India.

The International Rescue Committee - www.theirc.org - is providing emergency supplies and materials to "people most affected by the crisis".

The Salvation Army - www.salvationarmy.org.uk has local teams working in a number of affected areas and is sending a team from its international headquarters on Wednesday evening.

Muslim Aid - www.muslimaid.org - has already donated £100,000 towards the purchase of food, clothing and medicine in the region but wants to raise more.

Action Aid - www.actionaid.org - is the biggest charity working in south India. It is focusing its relief work on the coast of Tamil Nadu, where 7,000 people died. It is working on providing medical assistance and sanitation for the survivors.

Oxfam - www.oxfam.org - is active in Indonesia, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Sri Lanka and India. Their relief operations include distributing food packs and hygiene kits and setting up water and sanitation facilities.

Asia Quake Relief Appeal UK, a UK-based Sri Lankan organisation, is also raising money and can be e-mailed at asia-quakerelief@europe.com.

World Jewish Aid - www.worldjewishaid.org.uk - is working with local partners in India, Indonesia and other affected areas to help survivors threatened by water contamination and disease.

Hindu NGO Baps Care International - www.bapscare.org - is working in villages around Chennai in Southern India distributing food, drinking water, tarpaulins, utensils, stoves, clothes and blankets.

Goal teams - www.goal.ie - are at present working in Tamil Nadu in Southern India where they are distributing aid to 5,000 families.

A large team of doctors, engineers and logisticians are also in Sri Lanka.

Action Against Hunger - www.aahuk.org - has projects in about 40 countries, including Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

You can donate to all the campaigns via their websites.

Information may be obtained from these web sites

BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) News
http://news.bbc.co.uk

Foreign and Commonwealth office
http://www.fco.gov.uk

International Committee of the Red Cross
http://www.icrc.org/home.nsf/home/webfamilylinks

As a result of the strongest earthquake in 40 years and massive tidal waves in the Bay Bengal on December 26, 2004, tens of thousands of people in the area are dead, missing or separated from their relatives. Families all over the world have lost contact and are without news of their loved ones in the region. 
The aim of the ICRC's familylinks website is to help those separated by conflict or disaster to find information about their loved ones in order to restore contact.

Victim Name Search - Thailand 
http://www.ceronsoftware.com/phuket/

Missing persons messages and photographs Phuket Gazette

Map of affected countries and their death tolls 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4146127.stm#map

Tsunami aid: Who's giving what
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4145259.stm

Thai Government

Thai resource page

United Nations

Countries hit  by the tsunami - 26^th December 2004 

INDONESIA

Impact: The west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the closest inhabited area to the epicentre of the earthquake, was devastated by the tsunami. More than 70% of the inhabitants of some coastal villages are reported to have died.

Toll: The death toll stands at 94,000 but officials expect it to rise. Heavy rains after the tsunami in Aceh, northern Sumatra, have increased the risk of cholera and other waterborne diseases.

Aid: All infrastructure has been wiped out in the worst-affected areas, leaving people in need of water and food as well as shelter. Many local government officials are themselves dead or missing. Aid organisations were barred from the area because of separatist conflict, until the tsunami struck.

SRI LANKA

Impact: More people have died in Sri Lanka as a result of the tsunami than anywhere else, apart from Indonesia. A correspondent who flew over the country by helicopter described it as ravaged. Homes, crops and fishing boats have all been destroyed.

Toll: More than 30,000 have died, and thousands more are missing. The number of homeless people is put at between 800,000 and one million.

Aid: A relief operation is in full swing. Foreign aid workers say they are seeing an unprecedented level of co-operation between the Sri Lankan government and the rebel Tamil Tigers to deliver much-needed aid to the impoverished north-east.

INDIA

Impact: India's south-east coast, especially the state of Tamil Nadu, and the Andaman and Nicobar islands, were the worst-affected areas. (See below for more details on the Andaman and Nicobar islands.)

Toll: Some 9,500 people are confirmed dead, and more than 6,000 are missing. At least 140,000 people, mostly from fishing families, are in relief centres.

Aid: Medical teams have begun a vaccination campaign to try to reduce the spread of disease.

ANDAMAN AND NICOBAR ISLANDS

Impact: Salt water, which washed over the islands, contaminated many sources of fresh water, and destroyed large areas of arable land. Most of the islands' jetties have also been destroyed.

Toll: More than 800 of the island's 400,000 people are confirmed dead and some 5,000 are missing.

Aid: India has refused assistance from international aid agencies, because the presence of a military base on one of the islands and the presence of stone-age tribes on some others. It has evacuated 3,000 people and set up a relief operation in the capital, Port Blair. Inhabitants of the most remote islands proved that they had survived by shooting arrows at coast guard helicopters.

THAILAND

Impact: The west coast of Thailand was severely hit, including outlying islands and tourist resorts such as Phuket. Some bodies may still lie in the rubble of ruined hotels.

Toll: More than 5,200 are confirmed dead, but the Thai prime minister says this figure is certain to rise. Half of the bodies identified so far are foreigners, from a total of 36 countries.

Aid: Thailand has asked for technical help to identify the dead, and a huge operation to take DNA samples from the bodies is under way.

MALDIVES

Impact: Large areas of the capital, Male, were left under water. With most of the Maldives being only 1m (3ft) above sea level, the damage is extensive.

Toll: High waves and floods inundated the islands, killing at least 74 people, with dozens of others missing.

MALAYSIA

Impact: Although Malaysia lies close to the epicentre, much of its coastline was spared widespread devastation because it was shielded by Sumatra. However, scores of people were swept from beaches near the northern island of Penang.

Toll: At least 68 people are confirmed dead.

BURMA

Impact: The worst affected area was the Irrawaddy Delta, inhabited by poor subsistence farmers and fishing families.

Toll: Burma's military junta has put the death toll at 59, but the World Food Programme (WFP) says this may be an underestimate. One WFP employee found 200 households where at least one person, who had been out fishing when the tsunami struck, was missing.

BANGLADESH

Toll: Two people have been reported dead in Bangladesh.

SOMALIA

Impact: Somalia is the worst-hit African state, with damage concentrated in the region of Puntland, on the tip of the Horn of Africa. The water destroyed 1,180 homes, smashed 2,400 boats and rendered freshwater wells and reservoirs unusable, the UN said in a report on 4 January.

Toll: At least 150 Somalis are known to have died, with thousands more homeless and many fishermen still unaccounted for. About 50,000 people have been displaced.

Aid: The UN has called for $13m to help tsunami victims. Aid agencies with small ground operations in Puntland have delivered food and relief supplies, as has a German Navy helicopter. Somalia is anarchic and has few roads, presenting aid agencies with a major challenge.

KENYA

One person drowned in Kenya, and the country's meteorological service initially warned tourists, fishermen and businesspeople to stay away from the coasts.

TANZANIA

Ten people were killed in Tanzania.

SEYCHELLES

This QuickBird satellite image of the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka, just south of the city of Colombo in a resort area called Kalutara, was made shortly after the moment of tsunami impact,1020 hours local time on December 26, 2004, slightly less than four hours after the earthquake.

The disaster struck a band of the tropics that not only is heavily populated but attracts tourists from all corners. Throughout the world, people sought word of missing relatives, from small-town Sri Lankan fishermen to Europeans on sand-and-sun holidays.

As a result of the strongest earthquake in 40 years and massive tidal waves in the Bay Bengal on December 26, 2004, tens of thousands of people in the area are dead, missing or separated from their relatives.

A vast swathe of coastline which was home to tens of thousands of people has been wiped out.

Countries hit  by the tsunami - 26^th December 2004

More than 124,000 people have been confirmed dead across Asia - three-fourths in Indonesia alone.

The United Nations says the number exceeds 150,000 and may never be known as many bodies have been washed out to sea.

But people are still being found alive seven days after the disaster. The latest was a fisherman found under his boat which was flung by the waves onto the shore in Indonesia. 

Sunday 2nd January 2005

Tsunami aid reaches isolated Aceh

US helicopters have begun dropping food and medical supplies in isolated parts of Aceh province in Indonesia that were worst hit by last Sunday's tsunami.

Many remote communities there have been completely cut off and it is difficult to get aid in, relief workers say.

The area has been completely cut off for a week, the BBC's Rachel Harvey reports from the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.

A vast swathe of coastline which was home to tens of thousands of people has been wiped out and survivors are living in a sea of mud without shelter or clean water.

Areas hit by the Asian tsunami could take up to 10 years to recover, the UN secretary general has warned.

Kofi Annan spoke of the "sheer complexity" of the relief effort, which is spread across a dozen nations.

A spokesman for the UN's World Food Programme said that in some coastal villages outside Banda Aceh, helicopter crews had to throw food and other supplies to the ground after desperate mobs prevented them from landing.

A Swedish tourist who was pictured running into the Asian tsunami to save her family survived the catastrophe, as did her children, it has been revealed.

Newspapers around the world showed a desperate Karin Svaerd heading into the waves as other tourists fled.

"I can remember the white foam, how the surf took them up and they disappeared," she told Britain's News of the World in an interview published on Sunday.

"I could hear people shouting at me 'Get off the beach' as I ran past them - but I ignored them," she said.  "I had to try and save my children, nothing was going to stop me."

Then she feared for her husband Lars, her sons Anton, 14, Filip, 11, and Viktor, 10, and her brother, Per.

She found them together 10 minutes later.

They flew back to Sweden, arriving on 30 December, and then seeing the pictures in the press, under headlines like: "No one knows if they survived."

"Now, our family is closer than ever before," Mrs Svaerd said.

Left: A satellite image taken in 2003 shows the lush vegetation in the Indonesian province of Aceh - one of the regions to be hardest hit by the waves.

To be fair, he's by no means the only one.

Tony Blair and leaders from countries as far apart as Japan and Scandinavia, mostly off duty for the holidays, have also been accused of slowness and stinginess.

MAIN AID PLEDGES

EU: $30m already being spent on the ground, $132m in short-term aid, $455m for long-term reconstruction

Australia: $810m, distributed over five years, half the sum in loans

Germany: $674m in aid over the next three to five years

Japan: $500m - half in bilateral aid, half through multilateral institutions

US: $350m in debt relief, no time scale given

You can't call it a house - only the floor is left.

"I keep thinking why did I survive," she sobs. "There's no point in the elderly living - it's our children who should have survived".

When the giant wave came she was swept to the top of a tall palm tree.

Her two daughters and two grand-daughters died, but they found the body of only one grand-daughter.

The village of Vathiragan lies in ruins

The whole area is devastated. It's not just her house - her neighbours suffered in just the same way.

"In many houses four, five, six people are dead. In some houses all are gone," she says.

Every day more and more lost and frightened children are arriving at a special centre that has been set up in Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia's northern province of Aceh.

Anxious parents come here to search for their children. At its entrance is a message board. The messages flow with hope and despair.

The names of the missing are called out to the survivors. To help with the search they have started registering children here, taking photos to help put families back together.

Eleven days on, the wounded are still being brought in. Often the children are unaccompanied - their parents dead or simply missing.

Rafi Maulana. He arrived here wounded and alone, his parents killed. But who should decide what happens to him now?

"It's enormously difficult, particularly with medical demands requiring them to be moved away from their home areas," says Australian doctor James Bramley.

Unicef wants to help schools in Sri Lanka to re-open next week.

The children's agency says that restoring education services must be a priority.

The school in a box kits are intended as a fast, portable way to re-open schools - and in Sri Lanka it is suggested these classes could take place beneath the shade of a large tree.

Teachers get:
1 x Bag, Unicef, blue nylon, 360mmx230mmx610mm
2 x Pen, ball-point, black
2 x Pen, ball-point, red
2 x Pen, ball-point, blue
1 x Triangle chalkboard, 30-60-90 degrees
1 x Triangle chalkboard, 90-45 degrees
3 x Chalk, assorted colours/box-100
3 x Chalk, white/box-100
2 x Book, exercise, A4, ruled-8mm, 96 pages
1 x Clock, teaching, wood
1 x Pens, felt-tip, ass.colours, 0.8-1mm/pack-6
2 x Marker, flipchart, colours, tip-4.5mm/pack-4
1 x Scissors, all purpose, sharp, 180mm
1 x Tape-measure, vinyl-coated, 1.5m/5ft
2 x Paint, chalkboard, black
1 x Brush, paint, for chalkboard, 60-65mm
1 x Box, metal, lockable for storage
1 x Set of 3 posters, plasticized paper
1 x Poster, multiplication table
1 x Poster, number table
1 x Poster, alphabet table
1 x Compass, chalkboard, 40 cm
1 x Ruler, chalkboard, 100cm
1 x Cubes, wood or plast., coloured, set of 100
2 x Register, A4, squared, 40 sheets
1 x Duster/wiper for chalkboard
2 x Decal, Unicef, round, diameter 205mm
1 x Guidelines for the kit
1 x Tape, adhesive, transp 1, 5cm x 10m/box-20

Students' materials:
48 x Crayon, wax, assorted colours/box-8
120 x Eraser, soft
100 x Book, exercise, A5, 5mm-square, 48 pages
100 x Book, exercise, A5, ruled-8mm, 48 pages
100 x Pencil sharpener, plastic
144 x Pencil for slates
144 x Pencil, HB grade, black
80 x Bag, carrier, A4, interlock seal
10 x Ruler, plastic, 30cm, set of 10
40 x Scissors, safety, school, B/B, 135mm
40 x Slate, student's, A4 (210 x 297mm)

At least 100,000 people are believed dead in Aceh and Northern Sumatra, while some 500,000 people are sheltering in scattered refugee camps across the province, the UN estimates.

Large swathes of Banda Aceh, Meulaboh and Calang and their outlying districts are completely destroyed.

To speed up aid delivery, the Australian Air Force has assisted in improving air traffic control at Banda Aceh airport. The UN is moving supplies by truck along the road from the regional capital Medan.

Saturday was Children's Day in Thailand, although it was hardly a celebration for many of the children in the tsunami-ravaged regions of the west coast.

Twelve-year-old Siriam and 10-year-old Boui lost their mothers in the disaster, as well as their homes.

"People said the earth was splitting, and I could hear everyone screaming," said Siriam.

"I went out to see what was happening and someone grabbed my arm and took me up the hill."

Her mother was not so lucky. She is assumed to be dead, but her remains have yet to be found.

The body of Boui's mother was discovered soon after the disaster, impaled on a piece of wood.

The children of Phi Phi have lived through the almost complete devastation of their island.

The destruction was so complete that almost all of the islanders are now living on the mainland, in and around Krabi.

Children's Day celebrations took place in all the Thai regions affected by the tsunami, but the atmosphere was clearly different to that of previous years.

Foreign troops helping the tsunami aid effort in Indonesia's Aceh province must leave by the end of March, the government in Jakarta has said.

Foreign aid workers and journalists in the ravaged province must also now register travel plans, officials said.

Foreign troops operating in, or due to arrive in, Aceh include those from the US, Singapore, Australia, and Japan.

Their helicopters are enabling aid to reach remote communities on Aceh's west coast which were worst hit by the tsunami.

The Indonesian authorities first said they would limit the movements of aid workers on Tuesday, but more details have now emerged of those restrictions.

Efforts are continuing to deliver relief supplies and assistance to more remote areas of the Indonesian province of Aceh hit by the tsunami disaster.

Aid workers are particularly concerned about the survivors from small villages and towns along the west coast.

Among them is Lamno, left isolated after the only link road to Banda Aceh, about 100km away, was destroyed.

As everywhere along the Aceh coast, the devastation left by the 26 December tsunami is astonishing.

Thousands homeless

But Lamno has perhaps suffered more than many places because it sits on a river which channelled the surge of water further inland.

President Yudhoyono has warned every element of the Indonesian nation not to be suspicious about the presence of thousands of troops from friendly countries in Aceh. They have come here for a humanitarian mission and to rehabilitate and reconstruct Aceh. Instead, we ought to be grateful.

Kompas

We should thank the hard-working guests because without their help, the suffering of the victims of the natural disaster would be much worse... We do hope that the negative statements, xenophobia and a lack of appreciation shown by some members of society, will not discourage our Samaritan friends.

He is loading ice into the container of a big fishing boat so it can sail out next morning.

Just outside the harbour, massive cranes are still moving boats that December's tsunami tossed from the sea into ditches, canals and roads.

But inside the devastated harbour Fernando, an ice supplier, says he is back in business already.

Red Cross officials have accused the authorities in India's tsunami-struck Andaman and Nicobar Islands of "hijacking" aid supplies.

A spokesman for the agency said relief materials seized on the islands had been found with government workers.

Island officials have not commented on the charge but stress their policy that foreign aid to the islands only be distributed through the government.

Aid has yet to reach remote parts of many islands, a BBC correspondent says.

More than 1,800 people are now known confirmed to have died on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands after sea surges triggered by a massive underwater earthquake struck there on 26 December.

The umbrella charity group has received more than 2.8 million donations. 

It said the UK public's contributions had been "magnificent" and "humbling".

Of the donations, 1.7 million were by telephone, 650,000 online, 106,000 by text and 350,000 through the post.

DEC chairman David Glencross said: "We asked the British public to respond urgently and generously, and they have done so magnificently.

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels have been recruiting child soldiers from relief camps set up after December's tsunami, the United Nations says.

The UN's child agency, Unicef, says it has monitored the cases of three girls who had been recruited by the rebels.

The Tamil Tigers deny accusations they forcibly recruited the children.

The rebels and the government are in a bitter dispute over aid provision.

The issue of child recruitment has been a major point of difference between Unicef and the Tamil Tigers since a ceasefire began in early 2002.

Agencies accept Aceh travel regulations

New travel regulations for foreigners in Aceh should not hinder the relief effort in Indonesia, aid agencies have told the BBC News website.

They do not expect the requirements to curtail access to remote areas for now. The measures require foreign staff to register travel plans outside the main cities of Banda Aceh and Meulaboh.

However, human rights groups say they will be looking out for signs of "aid discrimination" by Indonesian troops involved in the distribution.

Aid workers in the field said the measures appeared to be more about monitoring movement rather than restricting access.

Aitor Lacomba, deputy director of International Rescue Committee, said he had met senior military staff to discuss the aid organisation's work in Aceh:

"[They] said it would be good if we could report our movements but he did not mention anything about restrictions.

"[They] even said that if we had to get to an area in an emergency, that we should go and report back to them later."

Under the new guidelines outlined in correspondence to foreign organisations operating in Indonesia, "all foreigners are required to register at the foreign desk in Banda Aceh."

Analysts are unsure if the tsunami will bring both sides to talks to end the decades-long conflict, or whether its disruption will be exploited.

Linda North, field programme director for International Medical Corps, which is providing mobile medical and psychological assistance to tsunami victims, described the travel regulation measures as "a polite announcement and not a heavy-duty requirement."

"At this point, we don't see it having any bearing. It's not surprising they are trying to take some control," she said.

Nine women in Sri Lanka are reported to have claimed to be the mother of an unidentified infant rescued from the Indian Ocean tsunami.

The boy was covered in bruises and mud when he was brought to a hospital in the town of Kalmunai, a doctor said.

Police were called after some of the women threatened violence, the Associated Press agency reports.

Tsunami-hit areas have reported several cases of parents who lost offspring claiming rescued orphans as their own.

Children are believed to make up about 40% of the estimated 31,000 people killed by the sea surges which struck Sri Lanka on 26 December.

Tribal organisations in India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands have severely criticised the local administration.

They have accused it of refusing to carry relief material from local voluntary groups to remote islands which were devastated by the tsunami.

The island administration has stopped voluntary groups from relief work in the worst-affected Nicobar region.

The UN humanitarian appeal funded by governments is still underfunded by 26%, and there are fears that initial promises might not be kept.

The charity is urging governments to deliver money quickly.

Indonesia has again raised its estimate of the number of people killed by December's earthquake and tsunami.

Health Minister Fadilah Supari said more than 220,000 people died or are missing, bringing the total killed throughout the region to 280,000.

A month after the disaster, relief workers in Aceh province are still pulling corpses from the wreckage.

But daily life is slowly returning, and the province's schools were reportedly set to reopen on Wednesday.

Most of the corpses being relocated are currently in temples near the badly hit Khao Lak resort in Phang Nga province.

More than 5,300 people are now known to have died when the 26 December tsunami hit Thailand's coast - with more than 4,000 of those killed in Phang Nga.

Soon after the disaster, morgues were set up at temples in the province, such as in Takua Pa and Bang Muang.

Schools in the Indonesian province of Aceh have reopened for the first time since an earthquake and tsunami devastated the region one month ago.

More than 100 schools reopened throughout the province, to give surviving pupils some kind of normalcy.

The move came as talks between the Indonesian government and Aceh's separatist rebels looked set to begin.

Jakarta said three top ministers would go to Finland to meet the exiled rebel leadership for talks on Friday.

For the first time since the terrible events of 26 December, schoolchildren - many no longer in uniforms - arrived to find their surviving teachers and classmates.

No one is very interested in a formal curriculum, however.

The happiness of children being reunited with their friends was muted by the rows of empty seats - a stark testament to the huge numbers lost to the tsunami.

An estimated 1,700 primary school teachers are dead or missing, and 35% of school-age children in the provincial capital Banda Aceh are thought to have been killed.

English teacher Roslina Ramli - who lost her four children to the tsunami - was the first teacher to arrive at her SM Pertama Negeri 2 school on Wednesday morning.

The country observed one minute's silence at 0936 local time (0336 GMT), when the giant waves first struck land.

Rebel Tamil Tigers declared Wednesday to be a day of mourning in the northern and eastern areas of the country they control.

"Let us all share in the grief and bereavement of our brethren who have lost their beloved ones," a Tamil Tiger statement said, the AFP news agency reports.

Talks between the Indonesian government and Aceh's separatist rebels will end a day early, international mediators say.

It is unclear why the meeting in Finland is finishing on Saturday.

A top-level delegation from Jakarta met leaders from the Free Aceh Movement (Gam) outside the Finnish capital Helsinki on Friday.

The discussions, which mark the first contact between the sides for nearly two years, were reported to have got off to a good start.

Nine people who survived the Asian tsunami have been found on an Indian island after 38 days of living on coconuts, police say.

A police party making a random check found five men, three children and one woman in a remote part of Campbell Bay, an island in the Andaman archipelago.

The nine, all of them emaciated, are Nicobari aboriginals, Campbell Bay's police chief said.

Up to nine in 10 survivors of December's Indian Ocean tsunami are likely to suffer from psychological trauma, experts have warned.

A Bangkok conference on treating tsunami survivors was told the mental health damage could last years.

"Recovery cannot take place unless we remain aware of the emotional effects and the mental health consequences," psychiatrist Jonathan Davidson said.

Indonesia has asked Singaporean vets to airlift anti-tetanus vaccines for elephants helping in the massive post-tsunami clean-up.

Their sensitive trunks are being cut by nails, broken timber and jagged sheets of corrugated iron roofing as they push rubble and debris out of the way.

The animals, working in six-hour shifts since the day of the disaster, are playing a vital role in removing debris and need to be inoculated.

Their work is unlikely to end soon.

The new money, which needs to be approved by Congress, comes on top of the original $350m (£188m) pledged after the 26 December tsunami.

The aid package includes $339m (£182m) for reconstruction projects and $168m (£90m) to provide food and shelter.

Swedes mark tsunami anniversary

In Stockholm, candles were lit in memory of the dead

Swedish families have travelled to Thailand to pay tributes to the dead

Sweden, which suffered the highest losses in the Indian Ocean tsunami for any country outside of Asia, is commemorating those who died.

Tsunami buoy laid in Indian ocean

The first of a planned network of tsunami early warning buoys is being laid in the Indian Ocean.

It is hoped that eventually a network of 24 buoys will extend to Indonesia and Australia, along the deep and unstable fault-line that caused the 2004 earthquake.

1. Float in a "stilling well" tube measures sea level
2. Data is processed and sent to satellite
3. Satellite transmits data to alert centres

Many people still live in tents two years after the tsunami

Former US President Bill Clinton has voiced concern at slow progress in rehousing those left homeless by the 2004 Asian tsunami

Mr Clinton said that only about a third of those affected by the disaster were back in permanent housing. He said more action was needed.

Mr Clinton has been visiting countries hit by the tsunami

Clinton warns on tsunami progress

The former president is on a tour of tsunami-hit nations in his capacity as UN special envoy for tsunami aid.

Muslim and Roman Catholic priests joined Buddhist monks in presiding over the burials

Monks pray during a burial ceremony of the unidentified victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, at Bang Muang Cemetery, 788 km (490 miles) south of Bangkok.

The cemetery is in the northern province of Phang Nga, north of Phuket, one of the hardest hit area by the December 26 tsunami, two years ago.

After the ceremony, the bodies were transferred to metal coffins and lowered into a mass grave, with plain concrete slabs separating the resting place of each.

Thailand began burying the last of its unidentified victims of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on Wednesday not far from the beaches on which they were killed.

The authorities chose a multi-faith ceremony for the 410 unidentified bodies; most are believed to belong to migrant workers from neighbouring Myanmar employed in the tourist industry.

“Wednesday started with Buddhist, Christian and Islamic religious ceremonies and the actual burial started shortly afterwards,” said police Colonel Khemmarin Hassiri, the head of the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification unit.

Muslim and Roman Catholic priests joined Buddhist monks in presiding over the burials in big concrete chambers from which well protected bodies could be retrieved easily if DNA samples and other evidence kept by researchers produced an identity.

Eleven aluminium coffins were interred in each concrete chamber cut into the sandy soil of a cemetery 3 km (2 miles) The aluminium coffins and concrete chambers capped by 500 kg would preserve the bodies from the hot, humid climate.

DNA samples and other evidence from each body would allow investigators to continue searching for identities

"If relatives wanted to pick up the bodies in the future, then we could dig them out easily," TTVI official Police Lieutenant Wiwat Sidhisorudej said.

Most of the unidentified victims were believed to be Thai or migrant workers from Myanmar who were among the 5,395 people, half of them foreign holidaymakers, killed by the tsunami in Thailand, where it left almost 3,000 people missing.

Tourism is steadily recovering after the 2004 tsunami.

The December 26, 2004, tsunami affected most coastlines around the Indian Ocean but hit especially hard Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India.

The total number of known victims stands at around 226,000 but tens of thousands of people are still missing. Three to five million were displaced.