People donated a record $17 billion US to help disaster victims in 2005, but most of the money went to a handful of high-profile catastrophes, the International Red Cross reported Thursday.

The Red Cross said almost all the money collected worldwide — $14 billion — went to help survivors of the much-publicized tsunami in the Indian Ocean, which struck Dec. 26, 2004.

Victims of Hurricane Katrina in the United States and the South Asian earthquake in Pakistan were also well supported by donors, who include governments and individuals.

In comparison, a massive flood in Guyana and deadly famines in Malawi and Niger received little attention. Victims there received less than $27 each from donors, while tsunami victims got $1,241.

In Malawi, for example, victims were forced to sell their land and household goods because aid never arrived, Red Cross worker Ted Itani told CBC News.

He said people in Malawi wanted to rebuild their lives, but didn't have the resources to do so.

"This is true of most of these forgotten disasters," said Itani, a Canadian who headed Red Cross operations in the Pakistan earthquake.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies released the findings in its 2006 World Disasters Report, launched Thursday.

Itani said media coverage is partially to blame for the disparity in funding. The more publicized a disaster, the more donations it gets, he said.

For example, the Red Cross report says Hurricane Katrina got 40 times more media coverage than Hurricane Stan, even though Stan was deadlier.

Katrina killed 1,200 people in August. A month later Stan killed close to 2,000 people in Guatemala and El Salvador.

Timely intervention needed

To solve the inequality in funding, the Red Cross report suggests donors make money available for aid agencies to use as they see fit, rather than for specific disasters.

The report also calls for more timely intervention in a disaster, heading off crises before they explode.

"We have the early warning systems," the report says. "So why do we still see last-minute, ultra-expensive airlifts of food aid in response to graphic TV images of starving children?"

Itani said funding must also continue in the months and years after a disaster has struck.

"The problem is that usually the response comes to the emergency phase of a crisis," he said. "But what follows emergency is the recovery and reconstruction, where scant attention is paid."

"That's where the real need is."

Almost 100,000 people were killed and more than 161 million were affected by disasters in 2005, the report says.

It was a sharp drop from 2004, when 251,000 people died and almost 170 million were affected, most of them in the tsunami.

With files from the Associated Press