The president, who was then on a private visit to Britain, rushed home and asked Tara de Mel to wear a third hat, making her director of the Center for National Operations.

About 100 people, half of them volunteers, are currently working for the CNO. Many of them are crowded into a room that used to be the parliamentary library. They sit in front of laptop computers collecting a vast volume of information for a databank that is at the heart of the relief and rehabilitation effort.

''I think we are on top of things,'' de Mel told Kyodo News in an interview on Wednesday. ''We are managing in a coordinated manner. We know where the gaps are and how to direct our attempts to bridge the gaps.''

Given her responsibilities at the education ministry, de Mel is very conversant with what the tsunamis did to the schools. A total of 170 of the country's 9,970 schools had been destroyed or seriously damaged, she said.

Additionally, 220 schools are being used to house the homeless, with relief centers set up in them to cope with the emergency.

''We've got to find temporary shelters and free those schools,'' she said. ''We've also got to get into the reconstruction phase and that work is due to begin on Jan. 15.''

Disease prevention is high on the priority list and, fortunately, other than for some government hospitals in Eastern Province, most of the others have been unaffected and are working. De Mel believes that handling the health sector is a ''manageable task.''

About a third of those affected by the disaster are children, many of whom have lost both parents and become orphans overnight. They are naturally traumatized.

''I can't give a number right now,'' de Mel said. ''It's very substantial, very significant. It's the top priority of our work.''

With 780 camps set up in 13 districts of the country, the homeless are expected to remain in these shelters for between two to four months. Food supplies are moving, with the basics of rice, lentils, sugar and milk being provided. But there has been a lack of animal protein now being met with canned fish.

''We've got tins that don't need openers,'' de Mel said.

She said that the Sri Lankan delegation to Thursday's ASEAN-sponsored emergency summit in Jakarta will ask for a coordinated international relief effort without duplication. Immediate reconstruction needs included railways, roads and bridges. Published: Wed Jan 5 10:06:37 EST 2005

It said it will make five billion rupees (50 million dollars) available to those who lost property at a concessionary rate of 6.0 percent interest, compared to the current prime lending rate of 10.6 percent. Governor Sunil Mendis told reporters the central bank expects rebuilding costs to be incurred this year to reach about 1.3 billion dollars. "This is only a preliminary estimate for costs to be incurred this year," Mendis said. "It could go up in 2006." More... Published: Wed Jan 5 04:04:38 EST 2005

The military has also been accused of rampant human rights abuses against the Tamil minority.

The two sides stopped fighting after a Norwegian-brokered truce was signed in February 2002. But peace talks collapsed in April 2003 because of differences over power-sharing, and efforts to revive them have repeatedly failed.

More than 30,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka and hundreds of thousands displaced in the tsunamis that hit many Asian countries last week. Published: Wed Jan 5 05:29:29 EST 2005