"It will take 10 years to rebuild the homes," said Margareta Wahlstrom, the United Nations special coordinator for wave-hit communities.

"The nature of a disaster like this is that many lives are lost, few remain alive and are injured, the physical devastation is near complete," she added.

Wahlstrom's comments came in a keynote speech to more than 100 delegates gathered in Hong Kong to discuss the allocation of funds donated to the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies for victims of the December 26 tragedy.

The worldwide organisation said that so far about 150 million US dollars of the record 1.7 billion dollars raised for tsunami victims had been spent helping disaster-hit countries.

More than 290,000 people died when the waves, triggered by a huge undersea earthquake off northern Indonesia, crashed into coastal communities in 11 Asian and African countries.

Hundreds of thousands more people were left homeless and had their livelihoods swept away.

The Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said most of their funds are expected to be spent on the two worst hit countries, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

"Our top priority will be to help people who have lost everything in the disaster and who are still living in temporary shelters ... (we will) help them to resume their livelihoods (so they) can make the same living again," said John Schaar, special representative for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Sri Lanka alone lost 100,000 homes in the tragedy and the aid group said the Colombo government had asked it to rebuild 15,000 homes as well as schools and hospitals.

Delegates called for the construction of a tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean.

"We want to have a preliminary system in place in 18 months with a better preparedness (system)," Schaar said.

More concrete long term plans and strategies for the next five to 10 years will be discussed and announced at the end of the forum on Saturday.

Hong Kong has been awarded the event partly as a thank-you for its fund-raising efforts, which saw Hong Kongers contribute 64 million US dollars -- at around 10 dollars per head the highest per capita contribution in Asia.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.