BANDA ACEH, Indonesia: Bustari Mansyur shrugs wearily when asked how many bodies his workers retrieved from the mangled wreckage of last December's tsunami. The question seems irrelevant.

"There were so many bodies, we could not count," concedes the chairman of the Aceh chapter of the Indonesian Red Cross, which took on an unofficial role as body-counter in the days after the disaster.

"On the first, second, third day there were a lot of bodies. We don't know how many."

The December 26 tsunami slammed mercilessly into coastlines around the Indian Ocean, resulting in devastation so complete that skeletons are still being retrieved as the grim cleanup labours on a year afterwards.

The most widely accepted estimates of the final toll add up to around 220,000. But significantly different figures are still being offered: the Roman Catholic charity Caritas suggested on Wednesday that closer to 400,000 lives were claimed.

Almost 400,000 houses were reduced to rubble and more than 2 million people left homeless, the UN says.

The world responded with pledges of some US$13.6 billion. Rebuilding has started in some places, and fishing boats and seeds have been handed out to kick-start ruined village economies.

But many refugee camps are still full and their residents rely on handouts to survive.

"It's been a tough year, if anything things have gotten worse as things went on," said Nila, a 42-year-old Indonesian woman who lost three of her four children to the waves. "I somehow feel lonelier."

Thousands of survivors have been rehoused in Aceh, but agencies say they are only about 20 per cent of the total number needing new homes. The landscape in many places is still one of devastation.

Former US President Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy for tsunami recovery, said much work remained to be done and that the international community faced a "critical challenge" in following through on its promises of help.

Source: China Daily