BANDA ACEH, Indonesia – A tsunami survivor rescued after 15 days adrift in the Indian Ocean recounted yesterday how he lived on coconuts that floated by, tearing them open with his teeth. Indonesia, meanwhile, said it hoped to ease the bottleneck of aid flights by opening a second airport north of Sumatra Island.

Also yesterday, Indonesia’s military chief extended a new cease-fire offer to rebels in Aceh province, the region hit hardest by the December 26 earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 150,000 people across southern Asia.

General Endriartono Sutarto repeated claims the guerrillas, who have fought for years for a separate homeland on Sumatra Island’s northern tip, had tried to hijack relief supplies. The Free Aceh Movement, known by its Indonesian acronym GAM, “is trying to stop food assistance and they are trying to rob the food away,” General Sutarto said. “If they ask for food, we will give it to them. They do not have to do this.”

The military yesterday restricted aid workers’ movement outside of the cities of Banda Aceh and Meulaboh, according to the New York Times Web site last night.

The 21-year-old survivor, Ari Afrizal, was picked up Sunday by a container ship after being swept out to sea by the tsunami from a beachfront construction site in Aceh. He is the third Indonesian to be rescued and brought to Malaysia.

“The earthquake lasted about 15 minutes,” Mr. Ari said after the ship docked at Port Klang near the capital, Kuala Lumpur. “Then the waves came, big, big waves that slammed down hard on us.”

Mr. Ari, who appeared fit despite the ordeal, said he saw four of his friends grab pieces of debris or uprooted trees, “but we drifted away from each other as the waves rolled us out further into the sea.”

For a while, he lay on a 5-foot-long plank, weak and exhausted.

“My throat was burning. The sun was hot. I had cuts all over my body. The salt water was stinging. I couldn’t even find my voice to call out to other survivors. Eventually they all drifted away and I was all alone,” he said in an interview from his hospital bed.

“I prayed and prayed. I told God I don’t want to die. …I worried about my elderly parents and asked for a chance to take care of them. As if my prayers were answered, a broken (boat) floated toward me a few days later.”

He ended up staying on the listing boat for five days before spotting a large unmanned raft with a hut on it. He swam up to it and found a gallon bottle of water aboard.

On the 15th day, Mr. Ari said he awoke and saw the container ship bearing down on him. He attracted its attention by waving his shirt, whistling and shouting in Malay “Tolong! Tolong!”- “Help! Help!”

The captain of the Al Yamamah, John Kennedy of New Zealand, said he was surprised to see “a frail-looking man” emerge from the hut of the raft.

Meanwhile, hoping to relieve pressure on the tiny airport outside the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, Indonesia opened up a new airport on the island of Sabang, north of Sumatra, said Budi Atmaji, chief of staff for the country’s relief operations. The airport at Banda Aceh has only one landing strip and is struggling to cope with about 200 flights a day.

Separately, the record generosity toward tsunami victims – now at more than $4 billion pledged – should set the standard for caring for the world’s most desperate people, the U.N. humanitarian chief said yesterday. But aid group Oxfam said it fears the money might simply be rerouted from existing funds for Africa.

U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, said a new outside auditing system will not only prove a further guard against any misuse of funds given to the United Nations but will also make sure governments meet their pledges.

In a gesture apparently aimed at helping mend the rift between warring communities in Sri Lanka’s Chandrika Kumaratunga, the country’s president, – an ethnic Sinhalese – announced plans to adopt a child from the disgruntled Tamil minority orphaned by the tsunami.