Threat of disease fades

Indonesia found almost 4,000 more bodies of tsunami victims, taking the global death toll from the disaster above 160,000. Despite that increase, signs of recovery were emerging.

Life was starting to return to normal in towns and villages on battered Indian Ocean coasts with markets reopening and fishermen casting their nets at sea again after the Dec. 26 earthquake and the tsunami that it triggered.

Worries were fading that the death toll could double if disease broke out in afflicted areas, but aid agencies said they must keep up their guard and were acting to prevent malaria in the Indonesian province of Aceh that was worst hit by the wave.

"There are no alarm bells ringing, but we cannot slacken our efforts. The threat is still there," Margareta Wahlstrom, the UN special coordinator for the disaster, told reporters in Jakarta after returning from Banda Aceh, the provincial capital.

In Indonesia at least 110,000 people died and many thousands more are missing after the earthquake off the coast of northern Sumatra island.

More than 30,000 died in Sri Lanka, over 15,000 in India and 5,300 in Thailand. With deaths also reported in Malaysia, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Myanmar and east African nations, the total stands at more than 162,000.

The tsunami struck without warning in a region where such waves are virtually unknown. Thousands of lives could have been saved if Indian Ocean nations had a tsunami warning system similar to one operating in the Pacific, officials have said.

While countries race to set up a permanent Indian Ocean warning system, Japan and the United States, which have decades of experience with tsunami alerts, will take on the job temporarily, Kyodo news agency reported.

To try to build a buffer against future tsunamis, Indonesia will replant swathes of mangrove forest along its vulnerable coastline, said Forestry Minister Malam Sambat Kaban.

Environmental experts say southeast Asia's mangroves -- many of which have been ripped out to make room for shrimp and fish farms -- could have helped to slow the tsunami by providing a barrier between the killer waves and land.

Kaban said Indonesia would revive its mangrove coastal defenses, earmarking 600,000 hectares for revitalisation.

"The tsunami in Aceh made us see the need to speed up this process," Kaban said.

About 700,000 people were made homeless in Aceh and many survivors were now living in makeshift camps.