Actor George Clooney aimed for hundreds of millions in a televised benefit Saturday.

Around the globe, individuals, organizations and national governments have reached out with money, material and manpower to help the victims of last month's tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

``Our focus has got to stay on this part of the world,'' President Bush told Americans in a speech to aid groups Monday.

At the same time, though, the president cautioned against overreacting to one cataclysm at the expense of other deadly troubles worldwide.

Some of those situations are arguably worse in scope and horror than the destruction from gargantuan waves. Many of them also are easier to address and even prevent.

``You should view the tsunami relief effort as extra help,'' Bush said, ``so that we don't shortchange the needs for compassion elsewhere.''

By now, only a hermit could be unaware of the undersea earthquake that led to the deaths of at least 157,000 people from Indonesia to Africa.

Thanks to the immediacy and electronic reach of images - unimaginable devastation, helpless humans swept away from loved ones, a parade of stars from all fields rallying to the cause - unparalleled aid streamed into places about which few Westerners had given much thought before the charitable holiday season.

Tragically less known, even today, are the avoidable crises of sickness and starvation never showcased on the nightly news or in two-hour celebrity telethons.

Yet these crises routinely cause more death each month than what resulted from a few hours of the killer tsunami.

In the words of George Rupp, president of the International Rescue Committee: ``The world's overwhelming and totally appropriate response to the Asian tsunami nonetheless illustrates how little we are doing to assist with humanitarian crises of equal or greater proportions.''

Call them the ``silent tsunamis.'' Each month, on average:

* More than 106,000 people, mostly children, die of malaria although inexpensive remedies exist.

* Some 150,000 people, again mostly children, die of infectious diarrhea often linked to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene.

* At least 150,000 people die of famine while health experts speak of an obesity epidemic in the world's wealthiest nations.

* An estimated 231,000 people die of AIDS, which has overwhelmed Africa and causes the fourth-most deaths worldwide.

About 31,000 die in one nation alone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, of disease, malnutrition and other effects of war. The Congo's grinding conflict has claimed 3.8 million lives since 1998.

In Sudan, fighting has displaced millions who also suffer such ailments.

``We must stop being so selective about which disasters are worthy of aid and which deaths are important,'' said Josh Gotlieb, a project director for The Malaria Foundation International.

Numbing Numbers

Diseases no longer widely feared in the United States and other Western nations are destroying families, decimating nations and destabilizing regions elsewhere.

The troubles typically have roots in basic neglect and poverty beyond the awareness of most Americans: a lack of basic medicine, health care, food and safe drinking water.

If the numbers and narratives of human sadness from the tsunami are depressing, some of the facts from the rest of the planet are achingly, exponentially gloomy:

A child dies every five seconds because of malnutrition, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

An African child has a 1-in-6 chance of not seeing his or her fifth birthday, according to the World Health Organization.

Some 170 million children are underweight, and hunger claims 10 million lives a year.

Practical solutions are within plausible reach.

They lack only money - and, it turns out, the kind of attention the world is giving the tsunami.

Unfunded Answers

Malaria, for example, is most likely known to American children only from history class, where they learn its toll among those who built the Panama Canal a century ago.

In many regions of Africa, however, it's an everyday terror, even though it can be prevented and cured.

The solutions are less complex, though probably more expensive, than building a tsunami warning system across Asia.

Simple mosquito bed nets cost a few dollars each. Medicine widely available to wealthier Westerners, but largely unaffordable in much of Africa, costs $1 a dose.

The World Health Organization estimates 500,000 African children could be saved with bed nets treated with insecticide, and hundreds of thousands more could be saved with medicine.

``There is a silent tsunami of malaria in Africa, where we could save millions of children a year for a fraction of the cost of what we're going to spend in Asia,'' said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Sachs, a special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, estimated $2 billion to $3 billion would save more than 1 million lives each year.

The amount is roughly equivalent to Donald Trump's personal fortune, or half the National Football League's TV contract with Fox broadcasting.

Attracting Attention

At the top of Wednesday's agenda at a global conference of countries that donate to needy nations: How to respond to the tsunami without sacrificing help elsewhere.

As of midweek, the U.N. World Food Program had received $500,000 in online pledges - more than it typically receives in a full year of public donations, according to Tony Hall, the U.S ambassador to the program.

``Unfortunately, the tsunami disaster is only one of many crises happening in the world,'' said Hall, a former congressman. ``I hope that this generosity will be extended to regions where the camera lights do not shine.''

Congress, too, is expected to take up the question of how to help in tsunami recovery without breaking the budget for aid spending elsewhere.

DATA, the organization founded by singer Bono, is studying the tactics of marketing organizations and political campaigns for clues about how to reach people on subjects such as global poverty and AIDS.

Like presidential candidates, the group is striving to attract attention from important demographics, using people such as Christian musician Michael W. Smith.

``We've done market research,'' spokesman Seth Amgott said. ``We know if we could reach more Americans, they would help us.''

`Compassion Fatigue'

The United States has doubled its assistance to the developing world in the past four years, creating a $1 billion Millennium Challenge Account linking foreign aid with democracy and human rights.

There is measurable progress on other fronts as well. Through the 1990s, some 30 nations managed to reduce the percentage of hungry people by an estimated 25 percent, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Still, the United States trails 22 nations in development money given to poorer countries. For every U.S. citizen, the government provides about $1 a week, and private donations add about $1.50 a week.

``We're basically stingy,'' said David Crocker, a University of Maryland professor who teaches courses on ethics and foreign aid.

``We're magnanimous when we have the big tragedy right in front of us,'' Crocker said, ``but as soon as something else takes its place, we'll forget about it and go back to business as usual.''

What happens is called ``compassion fatigue,'' said Mike Bisesi, director of the Center for Nonprofit and Social Enterprise Management in Seattle.

``Up to a point, people are willing to give - even people like Sandra Bullock with her million to the Red Cross, which I applaud,'' he said. ``And then they go on. Public attention will drift on to the next issue.

``CNN will decide some celebrity trial is more important. Time and Newsweek will have different cover stories. And that will be that.''

What Will It Take?

Even without disasters, foreign aid is widely perceived as inequitable.

The International Rescue Committee contrasts U.S. aid levels in 2003 between Iraq, where Saddam Hussein's regime caused much fewer casualties, and the Congo, site of the deadliest conflict since World War II: $3.5 billion versus $530 million.

``The international health response to the humanitarian crisis in Congo has been grossly inadequate in proportion to need,'' said Richard Brennan, who estimates mortality rates for the committee.

``In a matter of six years, the world lost a population equivalent to the entire country of Ireland or the city of Los Angeles,'' he wrote in the latest mortality study released in December. ``How many innocent Congolese have to perish before the world starts paying attention?''

Foreign aid from all donor nations has fallen by half from levels in the 1960s, according to the international relief agency Oxfam. Some never arrives.

Frequently, organizers say, once the attention surrounding a disaster dissipates, so do many do-gooders and supporters.

Honduras offers a nearby example. Struck in 1998 by Hurricane Mitch, then one of nature's most devastating storms, problems still abound. Some people remain without homes, and new ones lack wiring and plumbing.

``Relief and rehabilitation efforts must be sustainable and sustained,'' said Iain Simpson, spokesman for the World Health Organization. ``Not just geared to picking people up - but to helping them rebuild their communities as well as their lives.''

Reporter Keith Epstein can be reached at (202) 662-7673.