Monday’s broadcast marathon to raise money for the relief effort in the Philippines took the total donated by the Dutch to €18.5m, or just over a euro per head of the population.

The final total is likely to be higher because some fund-raising is still going on. In total, 54,000 phone calls were made to pledge cash and support and 2.1 million people sent out a twitter message.

The money will be divided up between the string of aid groups who joined forces to raise money, which include the Red Cross, Oxfam Novib, Unicef and Save the Children.

The most ever raised by combined Dutch aid groups was €208m for the victims of the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The earthquake in Haiti generated €111m and the appeal for the victims of the civil war in Kosovo in 1999 raised €52m.