Latin pop star Ricky Martin has made a "significant" but undisclosed donation to help build 224 homes for tsunami survivors in Thailand, a US-based housing charity said Thursday.

The singer of hits such as "She Bangs" and "Livin' La Vida Loca" made the contribution to the Habitat for Humanity charity through his foundation, which is based in Puerto Rico. Neither the foundation nor Habitat would say how large the contribution was, only that it would help 224 families - about 1,000 people - move out of temporary shelters in Phang Nga province.

"It's significant, it'll get the job done," Habitat spokesman Peter Witton said of the donation.
Martin's project is part of a larger, 2.8-million-dollar Habitat program to help 1,000 families in Phang Nga, the province hardest-hit by the December 26 tsunami that killed nearly 5,400 people in Thailand.

Work was expected to begin in April and to be completed by March 2007, Habitat said in a statement.

Martin, a goodwill ambassador for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), visited Thailand in January to witness the tsunami's destruction.

source: news.inq7.net - Philippines - Agence France-Presse