BRITONS moved by the scale of the south Asian disaster have pledged millions of pounds to the relief effort, as the death toll passed 100,000.

The plight of the millions left homeless by the giant waves has touched the hearts of the British public, with about £500,000 now being donated to the relief fund every hour.

The total raised by the public stood at more than £22 million this morning while the Government increased its contribution from £15 million to £50 million.

And Bolton residents have been quick to help survivors.

At travel agents St Andrews Travel's six shops, £1,600 was donated in 24 hours - £900 at the town centre shop in St Andrews Court.

Retail development manager Janet Whittingham said sums donated had ranged from £5 to £50, and many were from senior citizens.

"Staff have also wanted to give to the appeal," she said. "I think people just want to feel they are doing something to help."

Cheques can be made out to Oxfam and given in at any of the St Andrews shops in the town centre, Harwood precinct, Chorley Old Road, Astley Bridge, Westhoughton and Horwich.

The Bolton Council of Mosques has also launched an appeal urging the Bolton Asian community to pledge money.

The switchboard at Bolton Town Hall has been innundated with calls from people wanting to donate money or provide clothing or food.

Today the Red Cross appealed to people in the Bolton area to help them collect money.

Greater Manchester area president Edith Conn, who lives in Bolton, said there will be cash collections outside Tesco stores across Greater Manchester over the weekend of January 8 and 9.

This will include Tesco at Middlebrook, and the Red Cross urgently needs volunteers to collect there at times throughout the two days. "If people only have an hour or two to spare that is fine," said Mrs Conn. "When disaster strikes, the best way to help is to do something, and we currently need so much help."

Anyone who can help with the collection should ring the Red Cross on 0161-888-8900.

England's premiership football clubs have donated £1 millon to the relief effort. The 20 clubs have each pledged £50,000 to the Disasters Emergency Committeewich is coordinating the relief effort.

It follows a donation of £15,000 to the relief fund earlier yesterday by the England cricket team.

The Premier League has also announced that a minute's silence would be held by all the Premiership clubs - who have not already done so - this weekend as a mark of respect to the victims.

And soccer star Dwight Yorke has urged all top flight professional footballers to donate a week's wages. The Birmingham striker said the gesture could do an enormous amount for the millions of people left homeless.

International Development Secretary Hilary Benn said Britain had now donated more than any other single country to the emergency appeal.

"It is now sadly clear that the scale of destruction and loss of life is increasing all the time," he said. "I have said from the start of this crisis that we would make available the money needed.

"This pledge means that the UK Government is now the largest bilateral donor in this emergency. We will use this money to respond to appeals from international aid agencies and to help get relief supplies to the countries affected."

With almost 115,000 confirmed dead, the UN warned that up to five million people around the Indian Ocean lacked access to the basic supplies they needed to stay alive.

The confirmed British death toll last night stood at 28 although officials admitted that the number of UK nationals still unaccounted for could be in the hundreds.

Relief teams and supplies are pouring into coastal areas around the Indian Ocean today aid had still yet to reach some of the hardest-hit and most remote areas.

Aid agencies said clean water, shelter, food, sanitation and health care were urgently needed.

Dr David Nabarro, head of crisis operations at the World Health Organisation, warned: "Unless the necessary funds are urgently mobilised and co-ordinated quickly we could see as many fatalities from diseases as we have seen from the actual disaster itself.

"The tsunami was not preventable, but preventing unnecessary deaths and suffering is."

Dr Nabarro said the next few days would be critical in controlling any potential outbreak of waterborne diseases in areas affected by the giant waves, with incidences of diarrhoea increasing.

A Bolton man is one of the many hundreds of people who have joined the relief effort in Sri Lanka.

Ron Fallows, chairman of Astley Bridghe Cricket Club, was caught up in the tragedy as he was visiting the Sri Lankan capital Colombo as a guest of the Bolton cricket professional Amal Dalugoda.

He has now vowed to stay on in the country to help the survivors and assist the huge aid effort.

Mr Fallows, who comes from Sharples, is helping to deliver blankets, flood and water to the most desperate civilians whose lives have been wrecked in the tragedy.

He told the Bolton Evening News last night: "It is absolute carnage and chaos here with countless bodies lying on the street.

"The infrastructure and roads have been wiped out so getting aid to where it is most needed is difficult.

"Much of the aid is labelled in English so I'm better equipped than some of the locals at putting it on the relevant lorries.

"The destruction is unbelievable and it's difficult to describe unless you actually see it in front of you."

Mr Fallows narrowly escaped the tidal waves by taking a detour away from a coastal road just minutes before the wave struck.

He was at the home of a friend, on higher ground, and watched cars and lorries being washed away as the waters rushed in from the sea.

He said: "I was on the south coast of Galle when the disaster started, only ten minutes away from being in danger.We were sitting down and I remember being surprised because the electric fans suddenly stopped working.

"Then the waves started to come in, and it was sheer luck that I wasn't caught up in them."

Mr Fallows now intends to remain in the stricken country for around 14 days before returning to Bolton.

Mr Fallows added: "I didn't lose my house, belongings or money like most people. What I am doing here may not be much but, no matter what, I just want to do my bit.

In Thailand, crack rescue and forensic teams fanned out across corpse-strewn areas in south of the country, in a race against time to find survivors and identify rapidly decomposing corpses.

The death toll there was put at just over 2,400, but officials warned this could rise to 7,000 as thousands more were still missing - the vast majority feared dead.

Meanwhile in Indonesia, new estimates suggested that around 80,000 people lost their lives - more than twice the 36,000 who died in the previous worst disaster, when the Krakatoa volcano erupted in 1883.

In Sri Lanka the death toll jumped to almost 25,000, with at least 5,000 Tamils among the dead.