World Bank pledges 100 million dollars for Sri Lanka tsunami victims
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-31 21:33

COLOMBO - The World Bank said it was allocating 100 million dollars to Sri Lanka out of an immediate budget of 250 million dollars for nations devastated by the tsunamis.

The bank said it was initially making up the 100 million dollars available by re-allocating funds from existing programs and possibly through emergency credits and grants.

"This will be a combination of new credits and re-allocation of funds from ongoing projects," a bank spokesman said, adding that it was part of the previously announced 250 million dollar World Bank budget set aside for all affected countries.

Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Maldives had asked for help from the bank.

"Sri Lanka is proportionately perhaps the worst hit of all the affected countries, as a large portion of the country was affected and the bulk of the population lives on the coast," the bank's country director for Sri Lanka, Peter Harrold, told AFP.

Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga announced Thursday that the collateral damage was less than feared and placed the reconstruction cost at less than a billion dollars.

She said the human cost was heavy with the official death toll set to cross 29,000 with a large number of missing expected to be declared dead.

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