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Disaster Region Plans Tsunami Warning System


3 January 2005 -- The president of Indonesia says his country and its neighbors plan to build an early warning system for disasters like the one that struck south Asia last week.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono did not specify which countries would be involved nor how it would be paid for.

Regional leaders are expected to establish a tsunami early warning system during a donors' conference on 6 January in Jakarta.

Indonesia has been the hardest hit by last week's quake and tsunami. Today it raised its death toll to 94,000, most in the Aceh province.

Overall, the disaster killed some 140,000 people in 11 countries in the Indian Ocean basin.

Efforts to deliver aid to the region are now underway. The UN relief coordinator Jan Egeland said yesterday that 700,000 Sri Lankans should get aid within three days. Egeland said, however, there are still logistical problems delivering aid to Aceh.

(AP)
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