A helicopter crash and a powerful tremor in Indonesia hindered relief operations yesterday for the millions of victims of the tsunami and earthquake that rocked Asia more than two weeks ago.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center of the US Defense Department warned that a cyclone was moving towards the southern coast of Sri Lanka could disrupt relief work there. Residents in the area said the sky was grey but no rain had fallen yet.

Officials said all on board the helicopter were taken to hospital but no one had died. The US military briefly halted all helicopter flights taking aid to the interior, and although operations soon resumed, they were not at the usual scale.

Earlier in the morning, panic-stricken people in the devastated city fled from their homes and shelters after a 6.2 magnitude aftershock hit at 5 a.m. (2200 GMT Sunday), officials and residents said.

?There has been no report of casualties and we?re still gathering more data,? said Sutiono, an official at Indonesia?s meteorological bureau.

The 9-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami on Dec. 26 killed at least 156,000 people along the Indian Ocean, with Aceh province accounting for almost all of Indonesia?s 104,000 deaths.

The tsunami killed about 30,000 people in Sri Lanka, 15,000 in India, more than 5,000 in Thailand and others in the Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh and several East African nations. The global response to the disaster has been unprecedented ? governments and agencies have pledged more than $5 billion in aid and companies and individuals have promised $1.5 billion.

Rich countries said on Friday they would suspend tsunami-hit nations? debt repayments to help free resources for rebuilding.

Tens of thousands of people are still missing, many of them in Aceh, with hopes fading of finding many of them alive.

Much of the huge relief effort has been focused on getting food, drinking water and shelter to victims in Aceh, where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes.

<B>Relief hub</B>

Tons of food, medicine, tents and drinking water are being flown to Banda Aceh in a never-ending stream of aircraft along with doctors, nurses and relief workers.

The Seahawk that plunged into a rice paddy near the airport was probably coming in to pick up supplies to ferry to the interior of the province, where access by road has been cut off.

Aceh, an oil and gas-rich region on the northern tip of Sumatra island, has been battered by a decades-long insurgency. Indonesia?s military beefed up security in the area on Sunday and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono sought to reassure relief workers after a burst of gunfire outside a deputy police chief?s house and near the main UN aid office in Banda Aceh.

There was confusion over who was behind the shooting, with some officials blaming separatist rebels, while others said a disturbed government soldier fired the shots. No one was hurt.

?The security operation conducted by Indonesia?s military and police will protect, secure the humanitarian efforts,? Yudhoyono told reporters to allay any concern among hundreds of Western aid workers pouring in.

Chief social welfare minister Alwi Shihab said the military had ordered a high alert because of what he called possible infiltration by people wary of the foreigners? presence.

There have been reports of militant Islamic groups moving into Aceh as they believed Western aid groups might use the disaster to push a Christian agenda.

Indonesia is the world?s most populous Muslim nation and Aceh is considered the most strictly Islamic region in the vast archipelago. ?You have to proceed with due caution. This has been and is a zone of conflict,? Aly-Kahn Rajami, programme manager of CARE International, said after the shooting.

<B>Sri Lanka rebuilds</B>

In Sri Lanka, President Chandrika Kumaratunga told BBC television that with reconstruction starting on Jan. 15, ?we can certainly welcome tourists in three months, maximum four?.

In another boost to relief efforts, French Finance Minister Herve Gaymard said that the Paris Club of creditor nations was ready to agree to a debt moratorium for the affected countries at a meeting in the French capital on Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, fresh from touring several countries struck by the tsunami, said the United States should plan to provide long-term aid as efforts begin to shift from saving lives to rebuilding communities.

He said he would recommend to President George W. Bush ?that we stay engaged, that this is a long-term prospect, that we use our money not just for immediate humanitarian relief but for economic assistance for infrastructure development.?

<B>Achmad Sukarsono and Dan Eaton</B>