“When Daniel called it was the happiest I’ve ever been.”

Daniel, who was in the largely unscathed Jakarta, told The Voice: “We did not feel anything here because we were shielded from the waves by other islands. But everyone is on edge. People are collecting money to send to the badly affected islands. Everyone here is scared because it was such a near miss.”

Another south London woman, who was too distressed to give her name, says she spent Boxing Day awaiting news of her niece who was holidaying in Thailand with a friend.

She told The Voice: “She was walking down the beach with her friend but turned back when they heard the tide was coming in. That decision may have saved their lives.”

The tsunami was described as the greatest natural disaster in living memory and has united the world with millions of pounds of aid pouring in from all around the world.

Leading figures in the black community are also doing their part to help the quake victims.

Children’s TV presenter Floella Benjamin, who is a governor on the board of Dulwich College, is raising funds for the college’s Indonesian arm, which has been destroyed.

HEART

She told The Voice: “This is a massive global problem with so many children affected and black Britons need to help in anyway they can.”

June Daley, president of Miss Jamaica UK, is donating thousands of pounds from her south London clothes boutique to charities working in the area. She said: “It breaks my heart to see the loss and devastation. Everyone who can afford to give anything should do so.”

Thirty of the world’s richest countries have pledged over £250m but charities say that it is still difficult to get aid to the affected people.

Ordinary Britons last week pledged over £23million in 24 hours.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that quick-thinking Kenyan officials may have saved the lives of tens of thousands of people who were evacuated from beaches just before the waves hit the east African coast.

The official death toll in east Africa stands at 130, with one person reported dead in Kenya, the rest being spread across Tanzania and Somalia. Numbers are expected to rise significantly once rescue workers reach isolated parts of Somalia, where entire towns and villages are said to have been submerged.

Officials in Indonesia, which took the brunt of the waves, fear that over 80,000 people have lost their lives in the country.

In Thailand, desperate families searching for their loved ones have posted pictures on a hospital website in the tourist area of Phuket, while hospital officials try to trace the families of young children.

PERISHED

Over 24,000 have perished in Sri Lanka, 13,000 in India and nearly 2,000 in Thailand with figures expected to rise to 7,000.

Fifty Brits have died in the disaster with more than 100 still missing, presumed dead. These figures are expected to rise.

Aid agencies have said that over five million people in the affected areas are without food, medication or shelter.

Last week, Somalia’s Prime Minister, Ali Mohammed Gedi, appealed for international relief, as trucks carrying tonnes of food aid were stuck on flooded roads.

African and Caribbean countries have reacted slowly to the disaster. So far only the Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning has pledged an undisclosed amount of aid to the devastated countries.