The US State Department was looking for the whereabouts of nearly 5,000 missing Americans in parts of Asia hit by the tsunamis that struck 11 Indian Ocean countries.
The department’s deputy spokesman Adam Ereli told a briefing in Washington that since 26 December, his department has received nearly 20,000 inquiries about missing Americans, according to United Press International.
“We have been able to satisfactorily respond to three-quarters of those inquiries, or about 15,000,” he told the briefing.
Mr Ereli, however, said he could not give a precise number of missing Americans as “there’s not a one-to-one correlation between inquires and individuals.”
He said State Department officials were now going through the list to eliminate duplications or to reconcile different inquiries that might be for the same person.
Earlier, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is leading a U.S. delegation to the affected region, said that there were 4,000 to 5,000 Americans still unaccounted for.
Mr Ereli said the $350 million Washington has pledged to provide to countries affected by the disaster will be used rebuilding infrastructure in addition to humanitarian relief.
In Washington, Bush urged Americans to give money instead of other items because “cash donations are most useful.”
Report by David Wilkening
