The number of NGOs is so large that aid workers talk about the region being "overaided" and say it contributed to early coordination problems in getting emergency relief out.

There are so many medical teams in Aceh that a Belgian group posted a note at a media headquarters looking for people it could help. A German hospital set up in the badly damaged provincial capital Banda Aceh said it had just one patient its first week.

But the sheer size of the response enabled enough aid to get to refugees and officials now believe mass hunger and major disease outbreaks may have been averted.

This week, teams of doctors from the United States, the Pakistani military, Medecins Sans Frontieres and other organisations could be found in Lamno, a west coast town of 17,000 people and 10,000 refugees.

"There is more medical power in this town than any small town in America," said Dr. William Moore of the International Medical Corps.

"We do have everybody on the planet here in Aceh, sometimes it feels," said Ian Small, humanitarian project coordinator for relief group Oxfam.

SIKH SHIPS

Help came from far and wide.

Environmental campaigner Greenpeace said it sent its famed ship Rainbow Warrior to the Aceh coast. A relief group called Global Sikhs said it had two ships offshore.

The Church of Scientology moved teams of volunteer ministers to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. Travel agents offered volunteer holidays, mixing a cultural trip with a few days of work.

On Web sites, some aid groups warned that volunteers with no special skills would be in the way.

Early on, coordination problems and the rush of aid groups meant relief was not as well targeted as it might have been, people involved in the effort said.

"It was the Wild West out there," said a US Navy helicopter pilot who helped deliver food and water to remote villages.

Accusations were made in the media that the aid effort was going poorly. But Mans Nyberg, senior regional officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said this was "a perfectly normal situation" in such a massive relief effort.

The problems have eased as the infrastructure for aid delivery has gotten more established, officials say.

NEED THEM FOR REBUILDING

In Sri Lanka, where more than 38,000 people were killed, immediate relief needs were under control and plenty of doctors were on hand to deal with medical emergencies, officials said.

"We definitely need people ... such as for building bridges, buildings and in infrastructure-type work," said Niranjan de Soysa, spokesman for the Centre for National Operations.

Fears of epidemics have not materialised.

More than three weeks after the waves washed over Aceh, there are more than 350 refugee camps, but no cases of cholera have been reported. A widespread mosquito spraying program is under way to prevent malaria.

Diane Johnson, director of operations on the island of Sumatra for aid group Mercy Corps, said in a Wednesday news conference there may still be "pockets" of refugees out there who have been reached, but "there is not widespread starvation."