Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia's death toll from the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami rose to 106,523, an official at the National Information Agency said.

Another 12,047 are still missing, said Lukman, an agency official who goes by one name. There are 1,317 receiving medical treatment, he said. The death toll rose from 95,450 yesterday.

Nineteen days after the magnitude-9 earthquake, which struck off the coast of north Sumatra and triggered the deadly tsunami that hit 12 countries, the Indonesian army resumed restrictions in a province where it's been fighting the Free Aceh Movement since 1976, the British Broadcasting Corp. said. The region's military commander denied the army is hampering aid efforts.

``There are teams providing medical assistance, logistics coordination and we have to anticipate problems,'' Edi Setiadi, the military commander in charge of Aceh, said in a telephone interview from Lhokseumawe. ``We're not limiting the movement of aid workers.''

The military recommends aid workers register with the government coordinating agency in the capital of Banda Aceh for ``operational reasons,'' Setiadi said. There's a distinction between military in charge of humanitarian relief efforts and those, like himself, focused on security related to the rebellion, he said.

Registering Workers

Indonesia's Aceh region suffered the highest death toll from the tsunamis that killed more than 170,000 in countries straddling the Indian Ocean.

The plan to register foreign relief workers ``traveling outside Banda Aceh and Meulaboh is in the interest of security,'' the United Nations said in a statement giving an update on relief efforts issued in Jakarta.

Banda Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra, and Meulaboh, south along the western coast, are the worst hit cities in terms of death tolls and damage to property. Further south of Meulaboh, aerial observations during the past ``few days'' show there has been ``minimal damage,'' the UN statement said.

The local government estimates there are 363,679 displaced persons in Aceh, most of them concentrated in Banda Aceh and north of Meulaboh, the UN said. There are more than 1,600 children who are displaced and relocated to Banda Aceh.

The World Health Organization's establishment of an early warning system for infectious diseases has helped dispel speculation about cholera and measles outbreaks, the UN statement said. It has started a measles immunization campaign in partnership with the Ministry of Health and the United Nations Children's Fund.

Dispatching Trucks

Bill Hyde, the emergency relief coordinator for International Organization for Migration based in Jakarta, said there had been no field reports that distribution of aid has been impeded.

He will join a land convoy of aid tomorrow to assess the extent of military involvement, he said. The United Nations World Food Program earlier also said it hadn't had problems.

IOM today dispatched two truckloads of about five tons of food from the Indonesian government to Sibolga, a coastal town on the border of Aceh and North Sumatra province, to be shipped to Nias Island off the southwestern coast of Aceh, Hyde said.

Nias, popular among foreigners for its surf, was also hit by the tsunami and suffered some damage. Some small neighboring islands were submerged.

A further 26 trucks, carrying food collected by IOM and Japanese aid organizations, are enroute from Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, on a mountainous road to Meulaboh, Hyde said.

Aid workers say the town remains the most inaccessible, with mainly ships anchored offshore and aided by limited helicopter airdrops. IOM's first overland convoy to Meulaboh arrived on Monday, with 50 trucks carrying about 200 tons of food, Hyde said.

Operating Normally

The World Food Program's trucks are operating normally with no reports of restrictions by the Indonesian military, Bettina Luescher, a spokeswoman a the agency said. The WFP has distributed 48 metric tons of food this week, which includes rations for one month for 160,000 people in camps along the northeast coast of Aceh, a statement said earlier

The UN has received cash commitments for $717 million, or about three-quarters, of the $977 million called for by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan last week, Jan Egeland, the world body's emergency coordinator, told a press conference in Geneva yesterday. Government ministers from 30 nations gathered in the Swiss city to coordinate pledges and reconstruction spending.

To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo asheldrick@bloomberg.net; Claire Leow in Jakarta at

cleow@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 12, 2005 04:59 EST