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Australia affirms Aceh aid deal


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Howard with a tsunami survivor who gave birth in Aceh's hospital.
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(CNN) -- Australia has reaffirmed its commitment to working in a partnership with Indonesia to rebuild areas hit by the December 26 tsunami.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard toured the hardest-hit province of Aceh Wednesday.

Indonesia suffered more than 108,000 people killed and another 127,000 missing in the tsunamis which devastated parts of the Indian Ocean region after an undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra.

Howard said he and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had agreed that Australia's Aust. $1 billion ($776 million) aid package would be dispersed with approval from both sides.

"This is a partnership, we are here as guests of the Indonesian Government and the Indonesian people and we're here to work together as friends on a mercy mission," he said.

The five-year aid package is Australia's largest foreign aid program. Howard said he had held off visiting the tsunami-affected region earlier, saying he would have "been in the way".

He surveyed the damage by helicopter and visited Australian troops taking part in relief operations.

"My first impressions are that nothing I have seen on television has captured the extent of the devastation", he said.

Indonesia's minister in charge of tsunami relief operations, Alwi Shihab, said Australia would gradually replace its military personnel with civilians during the rehabilitation and reconstruction stages, but that the troops were welcome when needed.

A dozen nations were struck by the tsunamis triggered by a massive earthquake off the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

The 9.0 quake sent massive waves across the Indian Ocean claiming more than 154,000 lives. Indonesia was the worst-hit nation with 108,238 killed.

Five weeks after the tragedy, 127,774 people are still missing in Indonesia alone.

Despite the massive international aid commitments, the rebuilding process in hard-hit areas such as Aceh and southern Sri Lanka has barely scratched the surface.

More than $4 billion has been pledged by governments for tsunami aid reliefs and many hundreds of millions more has been promised from the private sector.


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