International aid

The world is holding out its hands to a superpower in crisis, offering hurricane disaster aid ranging from a French offer of ships and aircraft to a $US25,000 ($33,000) donation by tsunami-pounded Sri Lanka.

Offers streamed in after the United States, the world's biggest single aid donor, said it would be open to assistance though it was not making an appeal for foreign aid.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed the United States' "heartfelt" gratitude for the offers of aid that have poured in from around the world following Hurricane Katrina.

"We've turned down no offers," Rice said in a news conference, when asked about rumours that Washington had refused help from Russia and France.

Even Cuban President Fidel Castro chipped in, offering 1,100 doctors as well as 26 tonnes of medicines to treat the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Scenes of chaos - explosions and fires erupting in New Orleans, Louisiana, looters on the rampage, bodies in the streets, and refugees crammed into a stinking squalor in the city's Superdome - prompted an outpouring of shock and sympathy.

"Whatever they ask for, it will be given, from reserves of oil... to any other thing that they may need," European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in Newport, Wales, during a meeting of the 25-nation bloc.

The world's industrialised countries agreed today to tap their strategic oil reserves and pour 60 million barrels into the market in a month to cope with disruptions in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The International Energy Agency said that all its 26 member states had agreed to take "collective action in response to the interrupted oil supplies in the Gulf of Mexico caused by Hurricane Katrina".

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO also stood ready to contribute.

Among the major allies:

- Australia promised $10 million ($US7.5 million) through the American Red Cross.

"Given the extraordinary generosity of the United States when other countries are in need, and given the very close relationship between Australia and the United States, and given also the scale of the disaster, we believe it is a very valuable gesture and a mark of our concern for the scale of the human misery that has come from this disaster," said Prime Minister John Howard.

- British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said he had spoken to George Bush, and Britain was ready to help "in any way that we can".

"The whole of this country feels for the people of the Gulf Coast of America who have been afflicted by what is a terrible, terrible natural tragedy," he said in a speech in Watford, England.

"We want to express our sympathy and our solidarity and give our prayers and thoughts to the people who were affected by what has happened out there on the Gulf Coast," he said.

- Germany's Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, met US ambassador to Germany, William Robert Timken, and said he had made firm offers of "medicine, water treatment and technology to help find survivors" on behalf of the German Government.

- The French foreign ministry offered eight aircraft and two ships, with 600 tents and 1,000 camp beds also available at the United States' request.

- Japan offered $US200,000 ($263,000) for the American Red Cross and up to $US300,000 ($395,000) worth of tents, blankets, power generators and water tanks. Toyota offered $US5 million ($6.5 million), Nissan $US500,000 ($657,000).

- The Canadian Defence Minister, Bill Graham, said his country was preparing a package, including an offer of military assets. Canada will also boost oil exports to the United States.

- Among others, the Netherlands, a low-lying country that depends on its system of levees, or dams, has offered to send a team of experts to help plan the reconstruction of New Orleans. Italy said it was ready to help but had not been contacted. Sweden offered medical and technical aid. Lithuania's Red Cross started taking donations and Denmark said it had ordered emergency management officials "to look into the possibilities of sending aid".

Switzerland offered help in reconstruction or the prevention of further catastrophes as well as high-power pumps and other equipment. The Spanish arm of the Red Cross said it was sending a team of logistical personnel.

Venezuela offered the US embassy in Caracas money, fuel and medical and other aid.

"The US Red Cross has asked for aid from 50 to 70 logistical personnel from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies," the Spanish organisation said.

"In response to this call the Spanish Red Cross has mobilised around 200 logisticians trained in emergency situations and between four and 10 could leave for the southeastern United States within hours."

More poignant were offers from the needy.

Sri Lanka - still recovering from the December 26 tsunami that devastated the island's coastlines and killed 31,000 people - said it had donated $US25,000 ($33,000) and asked doctors to help the relief effort.

Somalis offered sympathy.

"New Orleans looks like Mogadishu when the war started," said bus driver Aden Mohamud in Somalia's war-shattered capital.

He said he was troubled by television images that showed most of the some 300,000 desperate people still trapped in New Orleans were black.

"Maybe some whites are also starving but the African Americans are who I have seen," Mohamud said. "I am sorry they are poor like us."