BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Hospital ships and aircraft carriers steamed to South Asia Friday in a global response to the catastrophic tsunamis that have claimed at least 124,000 lives.

Washington sent an aircraft carrier battle group capable of making clean water to Sumatra, site of at least 80,000 fatalities and several nations dispatched military hospital ships to some of the 11 hard-hit countries, Sky News reported.

Indonesian leaders, meanwhile, agreed to host an international summit next week to organize and coordinate emergency assistance and long-term reconstruction aid.

The World Health Organization said as many as 5 million people were without essential food and water supplies and the United Nations warned diarrhea threatens hundreds of thousands of South Asian children.

The World Bank has offered $250 million for relief, bringing world aid contributions to around $500 million.

Some of that aid is being refused. Thousands of Indians went hungry in southern Tamil Nadu state as the country declined foreign aid, excluding U.N. agencies and non-government organizations already present.

An underwater earthquake Sunday measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale off the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered the deadly tsunamis.

Fire in Buenos Aires disco kills 174

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- More than 174 youngsters died Friday when a fire in a crowded Buenos Aires nightclub caused panic as people rushed for the exits, officials reported.

Another 400 were injured during a rock concert in the Argentinean capital.

Fire and smoke panicked the concertgoers, resulting in a mad stampede for emergency exits, according to television reports, which showed footage of young people lying on the streets outside the burning Republica de la Cromagnon Disco.

There were no immediate indications regarding what may have caused the fire. Local media reports say that as many as 1,500 could have been inside the disco when the fire broke out.

Pak bus-oil tanker collision kills 31

KARACHI, Pakistan, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- A bus slammed into an oil tanker in Pakistan Friday, killing at least 31 people and seriously injuring 11, the PakTribune reported.

Most of the victims died on the spot when the bus rear-ended the abandoned tanker, which burst into flames near Saeedabad, some 143 miles northeast of Karachi, police officer Faisal Mahmood said. The bus driver's vision was apparently impaired by heavy rains and a broken windshield wiper.

Among the dead were 12 children, Mahmood said.

"The injured have been sent to Liaquat National hospital in Hyderabad city," he added, many suffering serious burns.

Pakistan has the world's third highest death rate from road accidents. Reckless drivers, overcrowded vehicles and poor roads are usually blamed for the high number of fatalities.

New Year's Eve finds peace in East Africa

KAMPALA, Uganda, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Negotiators in East Africa appeared close Friday to settling two of the continent's bloodiest and longest wars, the Telegraph reported.

Ugandan officials and leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army approved an indefinite ceasefire to a 19-year-old war that has left 1.6 million refugees in the north of the country and helped supply Africa's continuing slave trade.

The United Nations blames the Lord's Resistance Army for turning northern Uganda into the "world's worst neglected humanitarian emergency." Since 1985, the cult-like force has abducted at least 20,000 Ugandan children for use as soldiers, sexual playthings or slaves to be sold in Sudan.

In Kenya, leaders from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and officials from Khartoum expected to sign a permanent ceasefire Friday, with a comprehensive peace agreement set for signing next month to end the 21-year-old war.

Sudan's civil war has killed an estimated 2 million. The overall peace agreement would grant autonomy to the mainly Christian and animist blacks in the south from Muslims in the Arab-dominated north.

A coalition government would form, oil revenues would be shared and after six years the south would be allowed to vote on secession.