BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhuanet)-- International aid for tsunami-hit regions continued to pour in Tuesday as more countries sent reliefgoods or made donation calls.

    The United Nations has received 1.5 billion US dollars of donation in one week for the tsunami-hit countries, said ElisabethByrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "We have never seen such a surge in aid," she said.

    The aid pledges excluded loans and material aid such as medicalsupplies or direct bilateral aid.

    The world body also accepted Singapore's offer to act as its regional coordination center for relief efforts, according to a statement by the Singaporean Foreign Ministry on Monday night.

    The UN World Food Program (WFP) has pipelined 277,000 kg of food to tsunami-hit Somalis, a WFP official said Monday.

    A total of 198,000 kg of food has already reached the areas so far, and another 79,000 kg is still on the way, said Laura Melo, the WFP's public information officer for Africa.

    The WFP is making plans to assist up to 30,000 Somalis affectedby the tsunami for the next six months, and a total of 2.7 millionkg of food aid worth 2.8 million US dollars has been requested forthe operation, Melo said in a statement.

    A Boeing 747 carrying relief goods from China for Sri Lanka landed at Bandaranaike International Airport early Tuesday morning.

    The relief goods, worth 15 million RMB yuan (around 1.8 milliondollars), include blankets, tents, bed sheets, medicines, mosquitonets, power generators, biscuits.

    China delivered its first relief items worth 10 million RMB (around 1.2 million dollars) and 200,000 dollars in cash to Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

    The Turkish Red Crescent will dispatch an aid team later Mondayto Thailand, then to Indonesia and Sri Lanka to extend nutrition and health assistance to 500 families and 2,500 quake and tsunami survivors, the humanitarian group said.

    The South African government Monday set up an inter-departmental committee to coordinate relief efforts for tsunami-hit countries.

    Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi, who heads the committee, urged individuals and organizations to coordinate their efforts for maximizing "the impact of the assistance we will be giving."

    He called on non-governmental bodies and the private sector to designate representatives to participate in the activities of the inter-departmental committee.

    While in Washington, US President George W. Bush appealed to Americans to help victims of the tsunami.

    "I ask every American to contribute as they are able to do so,"Bush said in joint appeal with his predecessors Bill Clinton and his father.

    Clinton and Bush the senior will lead a nationwide effort to raise money for the victims, said the White House.

    French President Jacques Chirac on Monday urged his government to "mobilize all means" to help millions of people affected.

    "I ask you to mobilize all civilian, military and public healthmeans at the state's disposal to continue to respond to this emergency," Chirac said.

    "We have to continue to work to help our compatriots, to give aid by all means to families of the missing people and to continuethe search for and identify the victims," Chirac said.

    An earthquake, with a magnitude of 8.7 on the Richter scale according to China's State Seismological Bureau, hit at 06:58 a.m.local time (0058 GMT) on Dec. 26, 2004, off the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It was followed by a tsunami that swept across the coastal countries of the Indian Ocean rim, wiping off villages, killing more than 140,000 people.

    It is estimated that more than 1.8 million people in the tsunami-hit regions need food aid and 5 million others have been made homeless. Enditem