“What happened on 26 December, 2004 was an unprecedented, global catastrophe. It requires an unprecedented, global response,” he said, calling it the largest natural disaster the world body had had to face.

“From the nameless fishing villages of Sumatra to the modern tourist resorts of Thailand; from the beaches of Sri Lanka and India to the coastal communities of the Maldives and Somalia; the disaster was so brutal, so quick, and so far-reaching that we are still struggling to comprehend it,” Annan said.

“It seems at times like a nightmare from which we are still hoping to awaken.” It was all too real for millions in 13 affected countries and for tens of thousands of relatives of foreign tourists from 40 countries who are dead or missing following the disaster. US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao were also at the summit, held amid tight security in a city where Islamic militants have launched deadly bomb attacks in recent years.

Yudhoyono said a tsunami warning system similar to one long established for the Pacific should be set up in the Indian Ocean. Koizumi will tell the crisis summit that Tokyo is willing to freeze debt payments for countries hit by the tsunami, and try to persuade other lenders to do the same, Japanese officials said.

A draft summit document called on the United Nations to mobilise the international community and called for stronger coordination and cooperation on relief efforts.

Fresh tremors in Aceh’s capital Banda Aceh sent the hungry and homeless running in panic yesterday – the latest of dozens of aftershocks since the 9.0 magnitude undersea earthquake, about 150 km (100 miles) offshore triggered the tsunami. As the smell of rotting corpses again hung over the city hundreds queued outside a makeshift aid station, once Banda Aceh’s flashiest shopping mall, waiting for it to open.

When a tremor shook the old mall everyone scattered, running up the street, jumping on motorbikes, crying, fearing another killer wave. But the queue quickly re-formed. “We don’t have anything. Everyone is like this, the rich and the poor. Now everybody has to queue,” said Yusri.

Much of the city has been looted, and people are forced to scavenge among the rubble, littered with dozens of boats tossed from the sea, as Indonesian troops patrol the streets. “This is more than a curse,” said Sudirman, a butcher and one of the very few people to reopen a business. “Allah is very angry. And we must be resolute.”

After getting a bird’s-eye view of the battered northwest coastline of Indonesia’s Sumatra island, Powell promised Washington would send more helicopters, food and clean water to isolated survivors of the tsunami.

“I have been in war and I have been through a number of hurricanes, tornados and other relief operations, but I have never seen anything like this,” said Powell, who served in Vietnam and rose to be his country’s military chief.

DISSOLUTION

<B>Why is Bush dimantling the tsunami core group?</B>

■ It was the US president Bush who announced the setting up of the tsunami “core group” eight days ago. It will be outgoing US secretary of state Colin Powell who will preside over its dissolution yesterday at the Jakarta summit. Powell will try to take the sting out of it by talking about joint coordination centres in Colombo and Jakarta where Indian navies and US are in active collaboration. Announcing the end of the core group here on Wednesday, foreign secretary Shyam Saran said the “core group is no longer functional”. On Tuesday the US ambassador David Mulford told journalists here that the group would disband “soon”. Saran explained on Wednesday that the group had been set up to initiate a quick and coordinated response to the tragedy, and essentially mobilised countries in the region who possessed the wherewithal and the familiarity to deal with the emergency. Powell was quoted as saying: “ We called it ‘core’ as a way of getting started, recognising that it will be subsumed into the efforts of the UN”. The group was not free from controversy. Critics said it was another way to undermine the UN. Others said, the US did not want to share the limelight.

<B>Jerry Norton</B>