The World Bank announced Thursday a 250-million-dollar injection into emergency reconstruction financing after the deadly South Asia tidal waves.

The money instantly doubled the official financing available for rebuildingfrom the devastation.

"We are putting tills on the table now," the World Bank's spokeswoman for South Asia, Dale Lautenbach, told AFP. "It is an amount that will be available for emergency reconstruction.”

The money was scraped together by diverting fluids from existing programs and by using "idle resources" that had yet to be committed to any project, she said.

The funds would be available for the "immediate aftermath" covering the next six months. Longer-term reconstruction needs would be assessed in the weeks ahead, theWB spokeswoman said.

The news was initially revealed by WB President fames Wolfensohn in a conversation with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, according to a UN spokesman.

Wfalfensohn took pan in confer ence calls with Annan, heads of UN agencies, ambassadors of affected countries, and the "core donor sup port group" ofthe United States. India. Australiaand Japan, the Banksaid.

The UN chief later called on nations to make a long-term commitment to rebuilding from the tsunami wreckage.