He said pledges have been recorded of two billion dollars although another official said that figure was an approximation after Japan announced it would give 500 million dollars, the biggest single offer so far.
But with money and food pouring in, Egeland cautioned that it would take "many days" to reach many of those in need, with airstrips washed out by the killer waves that may have left 150,000 or more dead.
"The biggest constraints are the logistical bottlenecks by far," he told reporters at UN headquarters in New York. "We need to make small, damaged airstrips some of the busiest airports in the world."
Egeland added that the relief effort was facing "big logistical problems" in the Indonesian regions of Banda Aceh and northern Sumatra, as well as in Sri Lanka, the Maldives and elsewhere.
"The military and civil defence assets many countries are providing are as valuable as cash or gold would be today," he said. "It makes us move with the assistance and it makes us get there in the race against the clock."
He said more than one million people in Indonesia and more than 700,000 in Sri Lanka would need food aid for months, but added that the World Food Programme expected to reach all those in need in Sri Lanka by January 6.
In late-night consultations on Friday, Egeland said he had held a telephone conference with governments around the world as the global campaign tries to coordinate the work of hundreds of relief organisations.
He said he had outlined a wish list - some of which is already being provided - including air traffic control units, ships that carry helicopters, cargo planes, fuel storage units and hundreds of lorries and generators.
"Of course we also need the food and medical relief and so on, but that is coming," Egeland said.
He added that Annan had been invited to visit Jakarta on Thursday, the day when the UN chief had been expected to make an appeal for relief from UN headquarters here. Word on his trip is expected by Sunday, a UN official said.
As the world counts the human and financial toll from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated so many locations on December 26, Egeland again said the final death toll from what may have been the world's worst natural disaster will never be known.
"I said (Friday) that 150,000 would be my estimate. I am sure it will be higher than that but I am also sure we will never know how many people were washed to sea and will never, ever be found," he said.
While the confirmed death toll from the catastrophe edged towards 126,000, relief operations were stalled by flash floods that submerged at least 15 camps in Sri Lanka and a strong aftershock hit close to the epicentre of the December 26 quake which triggered the tsunamis.
In worst-hit Indonesia, US Navy helicopters bringing emergency rations were greeted by desperately hard-hit communities swarming for food in Aceh as the president ordered aid to be expedited to isolated areas. "Immediately channel this aid," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told soldiers as he surveyed a major backlog of aid that has built up at the airport in Banda Aceh, the nearly levelled capital of Aceh province.
"Do your duties as well as possible, day and night. We have the obligation to save each and every one," Yudhoyono said.
The United Nations warned the numbers killed by the wall of water could rise to 150,000, with the vast majority in Indonesia, although it said the true figure may never be known nearly a week after mammoth waves tore apart the coasts of the Indian Ocean.
According to the leader of Indonesia's Red Crescent relief team in Banda Aceh disease and illness are already starting to claim lives.
"Many victims survived the flooding but they suffered lung diseases because they swallowed foreign particles," Indonesian Red Crescent team leader for Aceh Agoes Kooshartoro told AFP. "Over the past five days many people have died because of this. They survived the waves but they died of infections."
New Year's celebrations in much of the world were muted or transformed into fund-raisers, with Sydney's fireworks show alone generating more than 850,000 US dollars for the disaster appeal.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell met UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York to discuss coordination of relief efforts ahead of a summit on disaster relief scheduled in Jakarta on Thursday.
The prime ministers of Australia and Japan, two members of a US-led tsunami aid coalition announced by Bush, were set to head to Jakarta for the summit, press reports in the two countries said.
In India, where nearly 13,000 people died, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked the one billion plus population for donations.
"It is at times like this that the best in us comes out and the human spirit transcends all adversity," Singh said in a national press advertising campaign launched Saturday.