Tsunami Aid Slow To Reach Victims

The United Nations said Friday it will hire up to 30,000 tsunami survivors in Indonesia in a bid to accelerate reconstruction, as foreign troops who spearheaded emergency operations began leaving.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's government suspended two village officials for allegedly channeling tsunami aid to friends who were not affected by the killer waves, while a third was suspended for being under the influence of liquor while on duty, said W. Weerakoon, a government administrator in Galle, one of the hardest-hit areas.

Ten other people are being investigated on similar charges.

Though millions of dollars in aid has poured into Sri Lanka since the tsunami killed at least 30,000 people here, 70 percent of survivors haven't received anything because of bureaucratic bungling and incompetence, officials say.

Emergency aid operations in Indonesia's Aceh province were winding down with the U.S. aircraft carrier that led aid efforts leaving the disaster zone, and Australia saying its troops would withdraw in a few weeks.

The USS Abraham Lincoln, which led a massive helicopter operation to deliver life-giving aid to cutoff villages in the early days of the tsunami, pulled out of Indonesian waters on Thursday.

Its departure marked a major drawdown of the U.S. military aid effort. Helicopters from the ship have flown hundreds of missions delivering food, water and other aid to remote villages.

Another 5,000 U.S. troops will withdraw gradually in the next few weeks, officials said.

As the foreigners leave, aid groups have turned to the local residents, many of whom have been left unemployed, to maintain the relief effort.

United Nations Development Program spokeswoman Mieke Kooistra said hiring tens of thousands of tsunami victims for reconstruction efforts "will inject money into the economy almost immediately."

"People will receive a daily wage," she said. "The process of collecting waste in a structured way ... will speed up the recovery in damaged areas."

The Dec. 26 tsunami killed at least 110,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh and left coastal areas thick in debris from destroyed fishing boats, shattered buildings, and crushed cars.

The overall death toll from the disaster ranges from 158,000 to 178,100 - nearly two thirds of them in Aceh, which was closest to the 9.0-magnitude quake that spawned killer waves in 11 nations.

The number of missing ranges from 26,400 to 142,100. While most are presumed dead, officials say it is too early to add them to the toll.

Thousands of foreigners were listed as missing after the tsunami - most of them from Thailand's beaches. On Thursday, Sweden, which had initially said 1,900 of its citizens were missing, trimmed the figure down to 523 as some people returned home and others were tracked to unaffected parts of Asia.

R&B star Alicia Keys and other international celebrities, meanwhile, sought to remind the world that with millions of lives shattered by the earthquake and killer waves much work still needed to be done.

They teamed up with chart-topping Asian performers in Thailand for an MTV concert late Thursday to raise money for tsunami relief work.

Thailand's own sultry pop singer Tata Young was an early performer on a bill which included India's Asha Bhosle, Good Charlotte from the United States and Taiwan's Jay Chou.

Actors from India's Bollywood film industry, and even a cricket-playing legend from Sri Lanka, took part in the event. Sting, Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez voiced their support by video.