New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who is cutting short an overseas holiday, will attend an emergency summit meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders to discuss the relief effort for tsunami victims, a government spokesman said on Sunday. Foreign Minister Phil Goff's spokesman said Goff also will attend the summit, which will take place in Jakarta on Thursday. Goff is planning to go to Phuket, Thailand, where most of the western tourists who were killed were staying when the tsunamis struck December 26 following a massive undersea earthquake. The number of dead is expected to rise to a staggering 150,000 people, the United Nations said Saturday. Only two New Zealanders have been positively identified as fatalities in the Phuket tourist resort area, but the Foreign Ministry is concerned about another 23 known to have been there at the time who remain unaccounted for. The ministry said a further 252 New Zealand tourists thought to have been somewhere in Thailand when the tsunami struck have also not been traced. A 31-strong New Zealand Defense Force team of doctors and nurses left Sunday morning for the stricken Indonesian province of Aceh where it will join an Australian medical group in a combined humanitarian effort.
