Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Wednesday that his country would provide 1 billion Australian dollars (about US$764 million) in loans and grants to assist Indonesia in its rebuilding after the Dec. 26 earthquake-tsunami disaster.

This was the biggest single aid package in Australia's history, Howard told a press conference in Jakarta.

"This is a historic step in Indonesian-Australian relations in the wake of this terrible natural disaster," Howard said.

Half of the assistance will be in the form of grants for short term relief and the remainder in loans for long term reconstruction, Howard said. 

The killer tsunami that was touched off by an 8.7-magnitude earthquake off Indonesia's Sumatraisl and on Dec. 26, has climbed to over 145,000 so far, with over 90,000 deaths reported in Indonesia. 

(Xinhua News Agency January 6, 2005)