Egeland said 1.8 million people in tsunami-hit countries would need food aid and that the figure could rise. It would take about three days to get food to 700,000 people in Sri Lanka but much longer to reach the 1 million hungry people in Indonesia, he said.

He warned there were still difficulties in reaching survivors in Sumatra's Aceh province. "That is where we are behind really . . . 90 percent of our problems are in those areas because they are more remote, because the damage was much bigger, because the roads are more damaged, because the air strips are fewer and they are more damaged."

In Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra, witnesses said rescued fisherman Sofyan was at sea when the tsunami hit Dec. 26. His boat was tossed onto the beach at Lampulo where he was trapped for a week without food and water. He was the first missing victim discovered alive since Friday.

"He's in extremely fragile condition, especially mentally," said Dr. Irwan Azwar, who treated the fisherman.

After a week of digging through rubble, rescue workers said finding more of the missing alive now bordered on hoping for miracles.

In India, which suffered more than 9,000 deaths, officials insisted there was still hope for survivors. But the search was essentially over in Tamil Nadu state, the southern region that bore the brunt of the country's sea surge. Veera Shanmuga Moni, a top administrator of Tamil Nadu's Nagappattinam district, said about 600 people on the missing list would soon be declared dead.

The scope of the relief effort — like the disaster — was tremendous.

The American military was mounting its largest operation in southern Asia since the Vietnam War, delivering supplies from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln stationed off Sumatra and sending Marines and water purifying equipment to Sri Lanka.

Four Indonesian navy frigates loaded with supplies arrived off the coast of Meulaboh, the fishing village that was one of Aceh province's worst-hit spots. About half the town of 40,000 was destroyed.

As a signal of U.S. concern, Secretary of State Colin Powell was to begin a tour of hard-hit areas today. Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Powell defended the administration's efforts against criticism that the United States was slow to respond with financial aid. Washington pledged $35 million at first but raised that to $350 million Friday.

"The American response has been appropriate. It has been scaled up as the scale of the disaster became more widely known," Powell said.

Health officials in the disaster zone said no medical crisis has yet emerged, although getting clean water and sanitation to hard-hit areas was urgent to prevent disease outbreaks.