Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Thursday called for an urgent summit meeting of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to coordinate relief efforts for the tsunami-hit areas.

Speaking at a news conference on the impact of the recent disasters in Indian Ocean countries, Lee said the meeting should request the United Nations to establish a special emergency fund for relief and reconstruction and a special representative to coordinate international relief efforts.

Lee proposed that the meeting also include countries outside ASEAN such as China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and India, as well as internationalorganizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Health Organization.

Lee expects the meeting to be convened next week while foreign ministers are discussing about the details.

Lee also announced that the government will raise its relief contribution from 2 million Singapore dollars (about 1.2 million US dollars) to 5 million Singapore dollars (about 3 million US dollars) as the demand changes.

He confirmed that seven Singaporeans had been found dead in thetsunamis while another 18 were still missing and 227 uncontactableup to 5 p.m. of Thursday.

The government has set up contact centers in Singapore and Phuket to provide help and updated information to family members who are eager to find their missing relatives.

On the same day, Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam at aseparate event urged schools and students to take part in the national efforts by raising funds and collecting or packing reliefitems when the new semester begin next week.

So far, Singapore has deployed altogether 700 personnel, 8 helicopters, a C-130 in the region as part of the international relief efforts and a landing ship tank with a team of engineers will depart for Indonesia on Friday.

The deployments, which are initially expected to last for two weeks based on the logistics they brought with them, will cost about 20 million Singapore dollars (about 12 million US dollars).