Annan cuts short holidays to oversee massive UN relief effort after Asian tsunami

Secretary-General Kofi Annan is cutting short his end-of-year holidays to return to United Nations Headquarters in New York tonight to oversee the world body's relief efforts after the devastating tsunami that struck Southern Asia, killing some 80,000 people, injuring hundreds of thousands more and affecting millions.

He will meet tomorrow morning with UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland and the heads of other agencies involved in the relief effort, which officials have called unprecedented and possibly the largest ever launched by the world body.

Over the past two days, Mr. Annan has spoken to the leaders of the nearly one dozen countries hit by the disaster to see what they need most urgently and has also been in touch with leaders of major donor nations to review the international relief effort and to underscore the UN's coordinating role, his spokesman said today.

Earlier today Mr. Annan discussed the situation with United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In an interview on CNN last night, the Secretary-General called for a generous response to the flash appeal that the UN will launch on 6 January, warning that the emergency relief phase for the catastrophe together with the recovery and the reconstruction phase will require billions of dollars.

"The needs are enormous. They need food. They need clean water. They need shelter. They need medication," he said. "We need to begin worrying immediately about the non-food items, sanitation, clean water, to ensure that epidemics do not set in. And so they need lots of help and are looking to the international community to respond and respond generously."