A New York radio show´s staff have been suspended for playing a song which ridiculed victims of the Asian tsunami.

The Miss Jones in the Morning Show on the Hot 97 WQHT-FM hip-hop station, hosted by Tarsha Nicole Jones, aired the Tsunami Song earlier this month.

It includes lines about "Africans drowning, little Chinamen swept away".

The station´s owners called it "morally and socially indefensible". Miss Jones and her six-person team apologised and offered a week´s pay to aid efforts.

Rick Cummings, president of radio at parent company Emmis Communications, said: "All involved, myself included, are ashamed and deeply sorry.

´Inexcusable´

"I know the members of the morning show are truly contrite. They know their actions here are inexcusable."

But managers decided the morning crew´s apology and donation offer was insufficient.

Miss Jones earlier said on air: "I apologise to all who have been offended by my poor decision to go along with playing that insulting (to say the least) Tsunami Song."

She added she wanted to "move forward from this being a better hostess".

The song, to the tune of charity hit We Are the World, includes lines such as: "I just saw her float by, a tree right through her head, and now your children will be sold to child slavery."