"Ironically, it is this very density and multiplicity that now threaten to tear apart the once idyllic nation," he lamented.

Arthur Clarke was busy working right up to the time he was admitted to the Apollo hospital here following respiratory trouble.

He was reviewing his last book, ironically named "The Last Theorem", when he died. The book, co-authored with American Frederik Pohl, is to be published later this year.

He would be buried Saturday in the General Cemetery at Borella in central Colombo at 3.30 p.m. In a rare honour to a private person, the Sri Lankan government asked the nation to observe a minute's silence at that time.

A committed atheist and rationalist, he had willed that there should be no religious ceremony of any kind at his funeral. But he believed in extra terrestrial life and predicted that one day, intelligent creatures from outer space would land on earth "in the lawns of the White House" as he put it.