Security Fears In Tsunami Zone

Indonesian authorities warned aid workers Tuesday that many parts of tsunami-battered Aceh province were not safe for foreigners, and the military claimed rebels were trying to rob aid convoys.

Indonesia's government said the airport in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital and hub of relief operations, is dangerously overstretched, and the U.N. and 80 donor nations meeting in Geneva are studying how to best use $4 billion in tsunami aid.

As the challenges mounted amid an unprecedented global relief effort, the United Nations made the unusual move of turning to an outside accounting firm to help track the billions in aid money and investigate any credible allegations of fraud, waste or abuse.

A Dec. 26 earthquake and the giant waves it spawned killed more than 150,000 people in Asia and Africa - roughly two-thirds of them in Indonesia.

Sri Lanka's tsunami death toll increased to 30,882 people Tuesday with 161 more deaths recorded in the past 24 hours, the government said.

The number of missing also rose, by 185 to more than 6,000 people, the government's National Disaster Management Center said.

The president of Sri Lanka meanwhile is urging her countrymen not to make hasty attempts to rebuild homes along the shattered coast, telling them that the government will help them move inland.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who is from the Sinhalese majority, also said she plans to adopt a Tamil child orphaned by last month's tsunami - a startling gesture that appeared to be aimed at helping mend a three-decade rift between the two warring communities.

Hardest hit by the disaster is Indonesia's Aceh province, another region long wracked by rebellion. Military chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto said Tuesday that separatists, who have been fighting government troops for more than 20 years, are trying to hijack relief supplies.

He called on them to agree to a cease-fire and "work together" to help rebuild.

"If they ask for food, we will give it to them," he said. "They do not have to do this."

Asked if some places were unsafe for foreign aid workers, Aceh relief operations chief Budi Atmaji said at a news conference: "Yes, in some places."

The military asked aid groups to draw up a list of international relief workers - and to report on their movements - but has yet to offer evidence backing the claims.

The rebels, through a spokesman in Sweden, deny they are threatening aid distribution and say their supporters are among the thousands of victims of the disaster in need of help.

Across the region, tens of thousands of people are homeless and threatened by the disease, and health officials have warned that the death toll from the tsunami disaster could double if aid does not reach the neediest fast enough.

The refugee camp in Calang, Indonesia, has grown so fast that considerations like sanitation and preserving clean sources of water have been left behind, meaning conditions such as diarrhea are becoming rampant and raising the threat of other diseases, doctors said.

With foreign troops and humanitarian workers pouring into the region, Indonesian officials said they were worried about possible accidents at airports that receive aid and have opened another one to ease the congestion.

As schools reopened across the tsunami-ravaged region, teachers put aside regular lessons and focused on healing.

"Today we're just teaching them how to pray in these difficult times," said Sutrisini, a school principal in a rural district in Indonesia who like most in her country uses only one name. She said normal lessons wouldn't resume for weeks.

In Thailand, psychologists have joined the relief effort, trying to comfort those who escaped with their lives and are in anguish now from guilt and questions about why they were able to survive.

"Many parents that I've dealt with are blaming themselves," said psychologist Roona Kabatznick, in an interview with CBS News Correspondent Barry Peterson. "Why couldn't I have protected my children? Why couldn't I have done anything?"

She tells them, "If you could've, you would've."

Petersen

In most tsunami areas, due to the extent of the disaster, there is an awareness that many victims may never be found - and some who were - may never be identified.

In some parts of Thailand, hundreds of bodies are being exhumed to do DNA checks - a process begun because of concerns that some foreign tourists may have been misidentified as local residents.

Japan pledged an additional $40 million in aid on Tuesday through the World Bank and via trust funds at the Asian Development Bank - on top of $500 million it has already promised.

In Washington, President Bush said the United States has a duty to help. After hearing Secretary of State Colin Powell's firsthand report of damage in the region, Mr. Bush told reporters Monday "We'll see" if the United States will give more than the $350 million in relief already pledged.

"The dollars are demand-driven," he said. "The government of the United States is committed to helping the people who suffer."

In Malaysia Monday, a man rescued a day earlier after two weeks on a raft told his story to reporters.

Ari Afrizal, who says he survived on coconuts and bottled water on a raft floating in the ocean, told of many ships passing him by before he was finally noticed and rescued.

"I prayed and prayed. I told God I don't want to die ... I worried about my elderly parents and asked for a chance to take care of them," said Afrizal. "As if my prayers were answered, a broken (boat) floated toward me a few days later."