Heavy rains and floods are holding up efforts to help victims of the Asian tsunami, but the United Nations said today that "extraordinary progress" was being made and the total amount of aid pledged had risen to between $2 billion and $3 billion.
There was a growing threat of diseases such as cholera and malaria which could kill tens of thousands of people, with survivors desperate to find water uncontaminated by seawater and sewage, said health officials from Sri Lanka to Indonesia.
Bottlenecks in the aid pipeline remained, but a top UN official said these were being overcome more quickly than in previous disasters.
The US military announced plans to double to about 90 the number of helicopters it was providing for the aid effort, boosting the capability to supply badly damaged areas where airplanes cannot land.
"We are making extraordinary progress in reaching the majority of the people affected in the majority of the areas. We are also experiencing extraordinary obstacles in many, many areas," UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said at a news conference.
He said donations toward disaster relief were growing daily, and "we are somewhere between $2 billion and $3 billion in total pledges," including funds intended for longer term reconstruction.
One aid agency, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), urged donors to stop sending it money for tsunami victims, saying it had collected enough funds to manage its relief effort in the region. The French government reacted by urging people to keep on giving.
Rich industrialized nations, criticized in the early days of the crisis for what was seen as an inadequate response, have stepped up efforts to help countries devastated by the tsunami by offering to freeze billions of dollars in debt repayments.
Britain's finance minister, Gordon Brown, said this could lead to "the possibility of some write-off of debt."
Germany was expected to boost its aid contribution from $27 million to $680 million, according to a government source, which would make the country the biggest single contributor to relief funds. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder promised to announce "a significant sum" tomorrow.