UNITED NATIONS, Jan 1: Japan on Saturday donated $ 500 million, highest single pledge for the aid and rehabilitation of the tsunami disaster victims in South and South-East Asia, a United Nations official said.
It topped Friday's United States announcement of $ 350 million.
At a press briefing Jan Egeland, UN's undersecretary-general in charge of emergency relief, the overall donations increased to $2 billion from some $1.2 billion mainly due to the pledge from Japan.
He also announced that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan would also travel to Indonesia and other disaster-stricken areas next week. About 40 governments and the World Bank have made pledges for the fund so far.
"We are at the moment recording pledges of $2 billion for emergency phase and recovery phase," Mr Egeland told his daily news briefing. "It's the biggest outpouring of relief in such a short period of time." He said that it was more than all the aid received by the UN in 2004 for such places as Sudan's Darfur region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo combined, adding, "international compassion has never been like this".
Mr Annan has been invited to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Thursday and UN officials say he will probably accept. The Indonesian islands of Aceh and Sumatra are among the worst affected by the earthquake and tsunami that struck on Dec 26.
