External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, at the Jakarta Convention Centre in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Jan. 6. The two leaders attended an international aid summit in the Indonesian capital city in the wake of the Dec. 26 disaster in Asia. (Photo: AFP)

JAKARTA (Reuters) : World leaders vowed on Jan. 6 to work together more closely to help victims of one of the worst natural disasters in living memory as U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan declared they were in a “race against time.”

[India offered to place its substantial naval power for humanitarian aid in the tsunami-ravaged areas even as it again said that it did not need global aid to deal with the tragedy in its own states, Indo-Asian News Service reported.

External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh, who represented India, told a special meeting of world leaders, “It is our evaluation that we can deal with the challenges, in so far as they affect India, with our own resources.”]

Amid warnings from health officials that outbreaks of disease could soon double the 150,000 death toll, Annan exhorted countries that have pledged more than $4 billion in aid to come forward immediately with nearly a billion dollars in cash.

Annan’s appeal, delivered at an emergency international aid summit in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, followed an assessment by the World Health Organization that survivors could succumb to cholera and dysentery unless they received clean water and other basic services by the end of the week. At the one-day summit, world leaders welcomed debt relief for countries hit by the Dec. 26 disaster and backed the creation of an Indian Ocean early tsunami warning system which could save lives in the future.

Annan appealed at the summit for $977 million to cover basic humanitarian needs for an estimated 5 million people in the next six months. “What happened on 26 Dec. 2004, was an unprecedented global catastrophe. It requires an unprecedented global response... It is a race against time,” he said. Governments around the world have pledged more than $4 billion in aid so far and private groups, corporations and individuals another $660 million.

In a declaration at the end of the summit, the delegates of 26 nations and groups welcomed debt relief for tsunami-hit countries and supported creation of an early warning system similar to one set up in the Pacific after a 1960 quake in Chile triggered a tsunami that ravaged Japan’s coast.

Major Aid Donor Countries

* Australia: $815 million * Asian Development Bank: $675 million * Germany: $660 million * EU: $529 million * Japan: $500 million * USA: $350 million * World Bank: $250 million * Norway: $181 million * Britain: $96 million * Italy: $95 million * China: $83 million * Sweden: $80 million * Canada: $79 million * Denmark: $76 million * Spain: $68 million * France: $64 million ––– Reuters