The emergency operation helping tsunami victims in Asia was making extraordinary progress but also faced extraordinary problems, the UN humanitarian chief said Tuesday, calling for more long-term aid.

"We are making extraordinary progress in reaching the majority of the people affected in the majority of the areas," Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland told a news briefing in New York.

"We are also experiencing extraordinary obstacles in many, manyareas and nowhere do we have bigger problems again than in northern Sumatra and the Aceh region," he added. "We still have logistical bottlenecks although that's part of the extraordinary progress that we have been solving many more of the bottlenecks earlier than we've done in similar disasters before."

The disaster had killed more than 150,000 people, injured 500,000 more and left up to 5 million lacking basic services, according to the world body.

Egeland warned that diseases were worsening by the day in areasthat the massive relief operation was not reaching due to lack of transportation.

He said the top priority "on his wish list" were C-17 transportplanes to fly in heavy earth moving equipment to increase the capacity of the airport in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, which registeredthe worst devastation among the dozen countries hit by the tsunami.

"We still need more trucks, we still need more helicopters, we still need more aircraft, we still need more landing crafts and boats, we still need more base camps with staff support, we need more fuel stores and handling units, we need more water treatment units, we need more generators and deployment kits for personnel. But in all of these areas we are making progress," he noted.

Egeland said aid pledged so far has topped 2 billion US dollarsbut he emphasized that it must be long-term and that donors must come up with the money they have pledged, which has not always happened in the past.