Financial assistance pledged by world governments for tsunami-stricken Asian countries has reached 1.2 billion US dollars after Washington dramatically raised its offer to 350 million dollars earlier Friday, a senior UN official said.

"We are now counting new pledges by the hour. We are now between 1.1 billion and 1.2 billion dollars," Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.

"I have never ever seen such an outpouring of international assistance in any natural disaster," he said, adding that the biggest challenge for relief operations now is to overcome logistical constraints to get supplies out to millions of people in need.

US President George W. Bush declared on Friday that the US government announced a tenfold increase of its aid to 350 million dollars from 35 million dollars for relief efforts and reconstruction in the tsunami-hit countries

Egeland spoke to the press after US Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan held brief talks in New York on coordination of international relief operations following Sunday's tsunami disaster.

Source: Xinhua