Efforts at recovery are continuing in areas hit by the devestating tsunami that killed 162,000
UN officials said the threat of disease had shrunk, but doctors reported children dying from pneumonia and health workers stayed alert. Trauma and depression took hold of some survivors.
Almost three weeks after the deadliest waves on record killed 162,000 people around the Indian Ocean, perhaps half of them children, Sri Lanka - where 30,000 died - geared up for a "reconstruction phase" due to start on Saturday.
In a small but symbolic step, the government handed 60 modest Fiberglas boats to fishermen, the first installment of a plan to replace half of the estimated 18,500 vessels washed away or smashed to pieces - four-fifths of the island's fleet.
Others tried to help themselves, with fishermen trying to patch up boats and farmers trying to flush clean land poisoned by salt water.
In Indonesia's scarred Aceh province, home to two of every three of those killed by the Dec. 26 tsunami, another 4,000 bodies were retrieved from the debris, but searches have been completed - or called off - in many areas.
In the province's capital Banda Aceh, aftershocks shook houses at night, sending terrified residents fleeing their homes yet again.
About 3,000 tsunami survivors are being hired for $3.30 a day to clean up rubble in Banda Aceh under a UN-funded program.