20 February 2005	Sunday	10 Muharram 1426

BAN NAMKHEM, Feb 19: Former US presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush came close to tears on their tour of tsunami-wrecked Asian coasts on Saturday after meeting Thai children who lost their parents in the disaster.

"It's very moving," Mr Bush said after a little girl whose mother died in the Dec 26 tsunami handed him a picture she had drawn of that day, showing her fishing village beneath the killer wave and a woman floating, eyes closed, in the water.

Bill Clinton also fought back tears as he spoke to reporters after receiving a similar drawing from another child of Ban Namkhem, where an estimated 1,500-2,000 people - more than a third of the village - died when the wave crashed ashore.

The tsunami may have killed 300,000 people around the Indian Ocean, prompting President George W. Bush to appoint his father and Clinton to lead U.S. fund-raising for survivors across the region. Clinton estimated that roughly another $4 billion was needed to help the survivors put their lives back together. -Reuters