Areas hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami could take up to ten years to recover, the Secretary-General of the United Nations has warned.

Kofi Annan, who will travel to Indonesia on Thursday, will launch a "major appeal" at an emergency summit of world leaders in Jakarta this week to help tsunami devastated nations, according to the UN's special envoy in Indonesia.

Colin Powell leaves for Asia today to inspect the devastation from last week's tsunamis and to raise the American profile in relief efforts. The American Secretary of State, accompanied by Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the brother of President George W. Bush, will travel to Thailand and Indonesia to assess recovery needs.

Across the region, 1.8 million need food assistance according to the United Nations. Food could be provided to 700,000 people in Sri Lanka within about three days, the UN official in charge of emergency relief said today. It would take much longer to reach the one million people who need food in Indonesia.

At least 124,000 are confirmed dead in the disaster and the UN has warned that the final death toll could be well over 150,000. The World Heath Organisation estimates there could be a further 50,000 deaths from disease.

The British death toll increased to 40 today, with five more deaths confirmed in Sri Lanka. There are now 29 confirmed British deaths in Thailand, eight in Sri Lanka and three in the Maldives. Reports have suggested that the British death toll could rise to more than 100, with dozens still unaccounted for but a Foreign Office spokesman refused to speculate on the number of Britons who were missing following the catastrophe.

As the aid effort picks up pace, 17 US navy helicopters have delivered aid to otherwise unreachable survivors in Indonesia's Aceh province and is bringing some refugees back to the main city of Banda Aceh. Progress has been made on clearing a huge backlog of aid at local airports, while the number of international medical aid groups on the ground in Aceh rose to 50. Eighty thousand are confirmed dead in Indonesia with the figure expected to rise.

In Sri Lanka, with 30,000 dead, the government has appealed for doctors psychologists and paediatricians to help give counselling to the many orphaned children. A Save the Children chartered plane carrying tablets to purify three million litres of water, cameras, 10,000 tarpaulins, ID wrist bracelets and megaphones to help reunite separated families, left Stansted today and is due to arrive in Colombo tonight.

Indian military helicopters are reported to have dropped food and water to all the islands in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago and the first aid-laden Indian naval supply ship has arrived. The devastated islands, where 6,000 are confirmed dead, suffered half a dozen aftershocks late on Saturday and early today, the biggest measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale.

As India today raised the total number of people killed or feared killed in last week's tsunami to 14,488, up by more than 1,700 since the previous evening's estimate, Sweden lowered the number of Swedes confirmed dead, from 59 to 52, and said the number of missing was now 2,915, down from 3,686.

Authorities in the Maldives islands confirmed another seven deaths taking its toll to 80, with 28 people still missing. The chain of atolls was believed to have been less badly damaged than other countries as waves washed over the low-lying islands but there are reports today that many of the smaller islands were completely subsumed by the tsunami.

Elephants joined the search for the missing and the dead in Thailand’s devastated coastal region today, Reuters reports. Six elephants, which featured in Oliver Stone’s recent blockbuster Alexander, were trucked in from an elephant camp in the ancient capital Ayuthaya, 800 km (500 miles) north of Phuket island, to help clear debris-strewn forests and speed up the search operation.

With 5,000 estimated to be dead in Thailand, half said to be foreign tourists, hundreds of bodies are still believed trapped under piles of concrete and rubble a week after the tidal waves wiped out entire beachfronts.

In Britain, the Conservative leader Michael Howard today suggested that Tony Blair should have abandoned his family holiday and returned to Britain to oversee the Government’s response to the catastrophe.

Asked whether the Prime Minister should have returned from Egypt, Mr Howard said: "That is up to him, isn’t it. I think if I had been in his position, I would have come back. Other leaders have. But everybody has got to make their own decisions about this and do these things in their own way."

British police have reiterated that people seeking information on friends or relatives should contact the Foreign Office helpline after a man was taken into custody and questioned in connection with a series of hoax e-mails sent to relatives of people missing following the tsunami. The e-mails were sent to people who placed appeals for information on the Sky News website. The messages, which purported to be from the "Foreign Office Bureau" in Thailand, told them their loved ones were dead.

The Foreign Office emergency number is: 020 7008 0000

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