Leaders to discuss €1.5bn aid operation
They will also discuss an ambitious plan to set up an Indian Ocean tsunami warning system.
Asian leaders including Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi - whose nation's $500 million (€376.7m) pledge makes it the biggest single country contributor so far - are to attend the summit, along with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, World Bank President James Wolfensohn and top European Union officials.
"The United States will certainly not turn away from those in desperate need," Mr Powell told leaders in Thailand following earlier criticism that Washington had been slow to respond to the disaster.
Meanwhile, United Nations humanitarian chief Jan Egeland reiterated concerns that the focus on tsunami aid would siphon off funds for other crisis areas around the world, such as Africa.
"Here is my criticism to the rich world: Could we wake up please to those 20 forgotten emergencies as we have woken up so generously to this enormous tsunami that has hit 5 million people and killed more than 150,000?" he said on Monday.
"I appeal to the rich world - and the rich world, I identify as 30 to 40 nations - who should be able to pick up the bill for feeding all the children in the world. It is one day's worth of military spending."
UNICEF chief Carol Bellamy said that assistance for children around southern Asia was "actually not bad... but we know it's not getting everywhere".
Japan also was preparing to send soldiers and aircraft to the disaster zone, and a 20-member military team left yesterday to study the needs in the region. Defence chief Yoshinori Ono sent an order to land, sea and air forces yesterday to ready medical care and other aid.
Talks on an Indian Ocean tsunami warning system are expected to dominate tomorrow's conference.
A tsunami warning system already links 26 Pacific Ocean nations. If it had been expanded to the Indian Ocean coastal countries, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration might have been able to warn them, the agency's chief, Conrad C Lautenbacher, said last week.
Over the years, the UN and other agencies that track tsunamis have endorsed establishing such a system for the Indian Ocean. But the countries that suffered the highest death tolls, like Indonesia and Sri Lanka, say they lack the funds to finance it.
Among the dozen nations effected by the December 26 earthquake and tsunami, only Indonesia received any warning from NOAA, and then only indirectly through Australia. Officials from the Pacific Ocean warning system put out an advisory to their members and attempted unsuccessfully to contact countries in the path of the tsunami.
Thailand and Indonesia are pushing hard for the system. Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said it would help provide "security for tourists" that are the lifeblood of southern Thailand and said it would welcome technical assistance from the US.
Scientists predict that a tsunami warning system could be built in the Indian Ocean in just a year and cost as little as €15m.
But experts warn the hi-tech network of sensors and buoys would be useless unless countries like Indonesia beef up communications links to the coastal communities that would be hit by giant waves.
Many coastal villages that bore the brunt of last month's earthquake and tsunami lack modern communication networks. Many don't even have telephones.
"There's no point in spending all the money on a fancy monitoring and a fancy analysis system unless we can make certain that the infrastructure for the broadcast system is there," said Phil McFadden, chief scientist at Geoscience Australia, which has been tasked with designing an Indian Ocean system by the Australian government.
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