An Antonov aircraft along with three Iriquoi helicopters will be sent to Aceh and more air crew will be sent to Sumatra, Indonesia, to ensure the around-the-clock operation of Australia'sfour Hercules aircraft already in that country, said Howard.

The aircraft, HMAS Kanimbla will leave Sydney on Friday, carrying helicopters and engineers to help with relief efforts, hesaid.

"It will go via Darwin and then on to Indonesia, and its many faceted capacities mean it will be available for any number of tasks, and that will be a deployment of course which is likely to last for a period of time," Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio quoted Howard as saying.

"We will offer a light field hospital which has about 90 beds to the Indonesian Government for use in the affected area," he said.

Two medical teams are on their way to the Maldives and Sri Lanka, he said.

He said there are several hundred Australian personnel involvedin the relief effort.

Howard said Australia's assistance may be increased further as the recovery and rehabilitation of the region would take some time.

"We will need to do a lot more in the months ahead," Howard said.

Australia has offered a total of 35 million dollars (27 millionUS dollars) of relief aid to those Asian countries that were hit by the tsunami disaster last Sunday.

And 10 Australians have been killed in the disaster and there are grave concerns for another 12.