The foreign secretary has led a British delegation to a tsunami recovery summit in South East Asia at which agreement has been reached on a warning system for the region.

Jack Straw was representing the UK at the event, in Britain's capacity as president of the G8 group of industrialised nations this year.

The conference agreed to the creation of a tsunami warning system for the region - where 150,000 were left dead after the massive wave struck on boxing day.

The declaration which emerged also agreed to an international conference to pledge support to the aid effort.

"This unprecedented devastation needs unprecedented global response in assisting the national governments to cope with such a disaster," the declaration says.

"We expressed our continuing commitment to assist the affected countries and their people in order to fully recover from the catastrophic and traumatic effects of the disaster."

UN secretary general Kofi Annan insisted the world faced a "a race against time" to prevent a significant increase in the death toll as disease spreads in the affected regions.

Britain's role

Despite being one of the single largest donors to the international aid effort now underway, Britain was not initially invited to the event.

However the G8's role has now been recognised and Straw joined counterparts such as US secretary of state Colin Powell and Annan in Jakarta.

"The key purpose of the meeting on Thursday, which has been called by the Indonesians, is to look at ways in which the international effort in Indonesia, but indeed elsewhere, can be better co-ordinated," Straw said earlier in the week.

"And we will be looking at longer term issues of reconstruction and support for the populations and governments as well as the immediate issues of aid to those people who have been stricken by this disaster."

Following the talks the foreign secretary is travelling on to Thailand, another of the worst affected nations and where the majority of Britain's 200 suspected fatalities were based.

Also in the region is international development secretary Hilary Benn who is visiting Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

His department has the lead role in Britain's contribution to the emergency aid and recovery effort and has already pledged to spend £50 million of government cash on supporting the work of charities and other agencies.

The prime minister has also promised to significantly increase that figure matching the UK public's donations expected to total around £100 million.