A STAGGERING £10m was donated by people across the region to ease the suffering of communities devastated by the tsunami on Boxing Day 2004.

A year on from the disaster, figures released by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) yesterday revealed the extent to which the region dug deep to help the victims of the catastrophe.

The response dwarfs the £1m donated by the region's public to Children In Need - the best supported home-grown charity appeal.

Across the country, £372m was donated to the appeal, making it the biggest disaster appeal in the country's history.

Of that total, just over £10m was donated by people living in the North-East and North Yorkshire.

The most generous parts of the region were Tyneside and York.

The figures show that in both the NE and YO postcode areas residents donated a total of £2.6m, while Teesside and Darlington each topped £1m.

People living in the Sunderland postcode area, which includes the deprived communities of east Durham, also dug into their pockets to hand over more than £500,000.

Moved by television pictures from devastated towns and villages across Asia, kind-hearted residents donated three-quarters of the region's total in the first two weeks of the appeal.

The unprecedented response caused a cash-flow crisis for other North-East charities, with the Great North Air Ambulance, Grace House Appeal and Marie Curie Cancer Care among a number of fundraising bodies reporting a drop in donations in the early part of last year and prompting Oxfam to call for donors to remember local charities.

Brendan Gormley, chief executive of the DEC, which represents 12 of the biggest aid charities involved in relief work in the earthquake-hit area, said: "On behalf of all DEC member agencies, I would like to say a big thank you to the people of the North-East and North Yorkshire for your amazing generosity. I hope you all have a sense of sharing in this achievement."

The money will be used to help the millions of survivors across the seven affected countries.