Global Policy Forum

By Chris Brummitt

The United Nations said governments have provided little more than a third of the aid they pledged to tsunami-hit nations and warned that it needed more cash to fund long-term reconstruction efforts. The world body was also weighing moving its base in Indonesia's worst-hit Aceh province because of security concerns.

Estimates of the number of people killed by the earthquake and tsunami it spawned in 11 nations ranged Tuesday from about 162,000 to 178,000 -- most of them in Indonesia's Aceh province. Another 26,000 to 142,000 remain missing, but officials say it's too early to add them to the toll with bodies still being pulled from the rubble. Indonesia said Tuesday it had found 1,055 more corpses, raising the country's confirmed death toll to at least 115,756. Fresh earthquakes rattled the region early Tuesday. Temblors were felt in Taiwan and Papua New Guinea, which were unaffected by the Dec. 26 disaster, but there were no reports of damage or injuries.

With the emergency phase of relief operations over, the U.S. military has started scaling down aid efforts, with other nations' forces preparing to follow suit. On Tuesday, Australian troops handed over the operation of a water purification plant in Aceh's provincial capital to the International Federation of the Red Cross.

But hundreds of thousands of survivors are still in need and the United Nations begged governments to follow through with promises of aid. So far $977 million has been pledged, but only $360 million has reached the world body's coffers, said Margareta Wahlstrom, special envoy of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "This is our key message to government donors: Please convert your pledges into hard cash in the bank. It's only cash in the bank that makes it possible to do work on the ground," she said Monday in Geneva. Although the United Nations is not currently short of funds to maintain its humanitarian relief operations, it warned that money is still needed in the long run for reconstruction. "(Governments) are very generous classically with food, health, and children, but they are very slow in filling us up on livelihoods and shelter," she said.

In Indonesia's Aceh province, security concerns have prompted U.N. officials to consider relocating the base for the massive international relief effort there. Joel Boutroue, U.N. deputy humanitarian coordinator, said the United Nations "does not expect to be a target" of an attack. But he said the gated and walled compound in Banda Aceh where 100 aid workers live and work had "structural weaknesses." "We will probably have to change site, find a new compound," Boutroue told The Associated Press, adding: "Where we are now is not optimal ... from a security perspective." Al-Qaida linked suicide bombers have targeted Westerners in Indonesia three times in the past three years, most recently bombing the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in September 2004.