How you can lend support to fund reconstruction

ASIA-PACIFIC: Efforts to rebuild communities and livelihoods devastated by the December 26 disaster could take a decade and carry a multi-billion price tag.

To help, contact:

- The United Nations World Food Programme - www. wfp.org

- The Disasters Emergency Committee - www.dec. org. uk - an umbrella group of UK aid organisations including Action Aid, British Red Cross and Oxfam

- The United Nations Children's Fund, Unicef -www.unicef.org.uk

- Save the Children - www.savethechildren.org.uk

- The Red Cross - www.ifrc.org

Items needed for donation: tents, food (pre-cooked or ready-to-eat meal packs), water purification tablets, wheat flour, rice, other staples, clothing, cooking utensils, shoes, books, school bags and pens, pencils etc.

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Red Cross - which received more than HK$320 million (US$41 million) within two weeks of the disaster, which has so far claimed more than 150,000 lives, has detailed its expenditure in a thank-you message to contributors. To date, the relief organisation has deployed $130 million to provide sanitation items, relief supplies and reconstruction in the tsunami-hit region.

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