SYDNEY, Jan 3 (AFP) - International donations towards Asia's tsunami relief effort are not enough to relieve the desperate plight of survivors, a key aid group has said, warning it will take a generation for many nations to recover.
World Vision Australia chief executive Tim Costello said something like the Marshall Plan -- under which the United States contributed today's equivalent of roughly 100 billion US dollars toward post World War II reconstruction of Europe -- would be needed in the aftermath of the Asian disaster.
"That's now the sort of will the nations of the world need to rebuild," he said, shortly after returning from the stricken island of Sri Lanka on Sunday.
Costello, whose agency has been one of the most successful fund-raisers, described the scene in Sri Lanka, where 30,000 people died in the Boxing Day catastrophe, as apocalyptic.
"I can only compare it to Europe after the Second World War.
"It's going to take a generation" to rebuild the affected nations, he said.
"Everywhere on that coastline people are suffering, people are desperate and begging for food, begging for water -- that's the thing that just hit me. I saw things I wish I had never seen and I certainly wish no humans should ever, ever have suffered."
Costello is a Baptist minister and brother of Australian treasurer Peter Costello.
His warning came as Australians continued to make generous donations to disaster relief, boosting the total raised by five major agencies to more than 75 million Australian dollars (58 million US) by Monday, World Vision contributing 16 million dollars.
The Red Cross had raised its tally to 38 million dollars by Monday, half the total. "It's been absolutely amazing," a Red Cross spokeswoman said.
CARE Australia said it had collected 11.5 million dollars by Monday, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad 8.0 million dollars and the Catholic aid group Caritas 1.8 million.
The government has also committed 60 million towards tsunami disaster relieve, raising the total by Australia and its people so far to at least 135 million dollars, with more coming from smaller agencies and individuals.
The government is also preparing to send more emergency relief support to the Thai and Indonesian governments after dispatching a 55-bed field hospital and 90 strong medical team to Aceh on Sunday.
Defence Minister Robert Hill says a second medical evacuation team would be sent to Banda Aceh, along with a team of air traffic controllers and air load staff, to help shift a logjam of aid and aircraft.
01/03/2005 03:59 GMT - AFP