Eight days after the killer tsunamis, various kinds of relief efforts are gathering pace in the countries around the Indian Ocean Monday.

It is commonly estimated that more than 1.8 million people in the region need food aid and 5 million people have been made homeless.

In the worst-hit area, Indonesia's Aceh province, aid planes have been taking vital supplies including foods, clothing, shelters and medicines to the surviving victims.

Though washed-out roads and bridges are still preventing aid workers reaching the people in the remote areas, the relief logjam is easing as military aircraft from Indonesia and some foreign countries take relief goods from the regional capital, Banda Aceh, to the people in need.

Aid workers have been shocked by the scale of the task ahead. "The emergency teams are arriving, to be blocked by a wall of devastation," a relief official said. Aid agencies say it could beseveral more days before all districts are reached.

Michael Elmquist, an official of the UN's Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said, "It's the greatest andbiggest aid effort in the world, a scale never tried before."

Fifty tons of food already have been distributed throughout theprovince. Another 400 tons of food have arrived in Banda Aceh, while 12,500 tons are waiting on docks along the east coast of Sumatra, according to media reports.

Elmquist said the food is enough to feed everyone in the province for six to eight weeks, adding, but relief planners are still struggling to get the supplies from the east coast to the island's west coast.

In Sri Lanka, the nation with the largest death toll after Indonesia, aid efforts have been hampered by continuing heavy rains and flooding.

According to official figures, about 80 percent of the fishing boats are believed to have been destroyed and, as a result, many fishermen are too frightened to set out to sea again.

In the Tamil Tiger rebels area in northeast Sri Lanka, the government has to show it is serious in relief efforts, although both sides have set up a joint committee to supervise the distribution of help.

Supplies are being dropped over India's Andaman and Nicobar groups, but aid groups are highly critical of government restrictions on their relief operations there.

At the same time, relief operations are being stepped up in thesouthern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, though much of the aid is coming from informal sources such as businesses, community groups and individuals.

Problems with coordination of many supplies being channeled to the right recipients are being ironed out, the local government said. As many believe that India's official death toll is expectedto soar as navy vessels and scuba divers comb river and sea bottoms for missing fishermen in the hardest-hit areas.

Meanwhile, UNICEF is supporting the governments of Tamil Nadu and Kerala to launch a measles and Vitamin A immunization campaigntargeting children affected by the tsunami disaster. A total of 100,000 children in Tamil Nadu and 15,000 children in Kerala will be immunized as part of the emergency operation over a one-week period, a news note from UNICEF said.

In Thailand, the authorities have promised to continue searching for bodies for at least five more days before taking further decision.

About 5,000 people are known to have died in the country - halfof them foreigners - and 4,000 people are still missing.

Ships from the Thai and Japanese navies are searching for bodies offshore, following a request from Sweden, which has the most missing tourists.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Thailand did not need foreign financial help but was appreciative of expertise and equipment from overseas. He hoped for more cooperation between theprivate and public sectors, and was pleased how fast the area "came back to normal activity."

Owners of hotels that survived in Phuket are encouraging vacationers to return. The return of the tourists is essential to their survival as some 70 percent of the hotels' reservations havecanceled.