The global toll from the Asian tsunami has shot above 226,000 after Indonesia's health ministry confirmed the deaths of tens of thousands of people previously listed as missing.

The ministry raised the country's toll to 166,320 on Wednesday. It had previously given a figure of 95,450 while Indonesia's Ministry of Social Affairs had put the toll at about 115,000 before it stopped counting.

Dodi Indrasanto, a director at the health ministry's department of health affairs, said the new total reflected the latest reports from the provinces of Aceh and north Sumatra, which were directly in the path of the killer tsunami spawned by a huge earthquake the day after 'Christmas'.

The new figure lifted the total global toll from the disaster to 226,566, although the number continues to rise as more deaths are reported around the region.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, speaking before the health ministry released its latest figures, told a donors conference in Jakarta that the true extent of the catastrophe defied description.

"Perhaps we will never know the exact scale of the human casualties," he said.

Toll details

Indrasanto said the health ministry report, which had 6245 people still listed as missing, had been sent to Susilo late on Wednesday.

The ministry's figures said 617,159 people were still homeless in northern Sumatra more than three weeks after the killer wave struck.

The staggering death count came as Indonesia said it was hopeful of holding talks with rebels in Aceh, where the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has waged a decades-long battle for independence from Jakarta's rule.

Aceh hopes

"Behind the cloud there must be a silver lining. Behind the scenes, a process is happening towards reconciliation," Foreign Minister Hasan Wirajuda said.

He said he hoped the talks would take place by the end of the month, but could give neither a date nor a place. A spokesman for GAM's exiled leadership in Sweden said there had been no progress on talks.

"We haven't had any concrete response from the Indonesian side," said Bakhtiar Abd Allah.

A UN official in Meulaboh, the province's second city, said emergency aid drops would have to be sharply increased to avoid hunger in outlying areas.

Security fears prompted by the GAM conflict have been a worrying backdrop to the massive international relief effort in Aceh, with Jakarta insisting all aid groups must have Indonesian army escorts.

But GAM's leaders have repeatedly welcomed relief efforts spearheaded by the United Nations, and the rebels have said they would not attack aid workers or convoys.

PHOTO CAPTION

An Acehnese man roams around the tsunami-devastated area, in Banda Aceh, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra January 20, 2005. (REUTERS)