The World Food Programme said that as it raced helicopters and boats to isolated communities cut off when waves destroyed coastal roads, more and more people were being discovered requiring immediate nourishment.

"There is an assesment made by WFP that around 790,000 people will be in need of food assistance in the short term," spokesman Inigo Alvarez said. "This is an estimation because people are moving, it is not a definitive figure."

Indonesia's health ministry said Monday it had buried 7,000 bodies since last week, revising its toll of those presumed dead to almost 233,000 in and around Aceh. The total believed dead around the Indian Ocean is now 286,000.

The deputy head of Indonesia's Red Crescent Society, Gunwawan, said that although there was now a surplus of foreign doctors, more medicines were needed as familiar seasonal ailments such as malaria and dengue fever broke out.

"We're going to need more medical assistance, but more in terms of the medical equipment as well as supplies because the types of diseases that we are facing at the moment are getting (to be) more common illnesses rather than those specifically related to the tsunami," he told reporters.

He said the surfeit of foreign doctors was "counter-productive" since cultural and language barriers meant they were unable to make a worthwhile contribution to medical relief work.

World Health Organisation spokesman Bob Dietz told AFP he did "not necessarily agree" with the Red Crescent official's assessment.

Despite inconclusive peace talks over the weekend in Helsinki Indonesian officials and separatist rebels in Aceh said they still hoped a deal could be struck which would safeguard relief efforts.

No formal ceasefire deal was reached by the end of the dialogue on Saturday, although the groundwork was laid for further talks, maintaining hopes that some kind of agreement may be reached.

"We have achieved some common ground and we will work on that. We look forward to further discussion," said Bakhtiar Abdullah, a Stockholm-based rebel spokesman.

"We are working hard to explore new possibilities and avenues for a political solution," he said.

Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin, one of the government negotiators, said rebels had expressed willingness to consider an offer of autonomy as a way to end three decades of struggle over the resource-rich province.

As fears grew over the misuse of relief through Indonesia's well-worn channels of corruption, authorities said they would use computers to track some 400,000 people left homeless to prevent aid going astray.

Budi Atmadi Adiputro of the National Coordination Board for Disaster Management said ID cards would be issued, after claims that statistics of displaced persons were being massaged by officials trying to siphon off aid.

The Indonesian government and the United Nations have pledged transparency will be paramount as billions of dollars of humanitarian assistance pour in.

In the Thai resort island of Phuket, global tourism chiefs called for rapid efforts to restore the region's vital holiday industry.

Harsh Varma, the World Tourism Organisation's chief of technical cooperation, said swift action was needed to bring back visitors to spend much-needed cash in areas affected by the tsunami.

"This is not an ordinary crisis and this is not an ordinary meeting. The livelihoods of thousands of people depends on this industry. In fact, it is their future that is at stake here," he said.

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