Rain soaks survivors

2005-01-01 11:20

Banda Aceh, Indonesia - Pounding rain drenched the wrecked city of Banda Aceh on Saturday, adding to the misery of homeless earthquake and tsunami survivors and heightening fears of waterborne diseases that could take many more lives.

Worldwide donations to aid those battered by the huge waves that slammed Asian and African nations topped 1bn and a steady stream of foreign military aircraft touched down in the epicentre of the disaster, Aceh province on the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island.

But supplies were hitting bottlenecks and officials acknowledged distribution networks were not in place to deliver desperately needed supplies to the worst-hit areas.

"The scale of the disaster is just too big," said Andi Mallarengen, speaking for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who arrived in the provincial capital on his way to the shattered Sumatran fishing village of Meulaboh. "We can bring in the aid, food, but we need manpower to distribute them."

Six days after the earthquake and tsunamis that ravaged 5 000km of Asian and African coastline, the confirmed death toll passed 123 000, and five million people were homeless.

In an even graver assessment, UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland estimated the number of dead was approaching 150 000. "The vast majority of those are in Indonesia," he said on Friday, adding that the final toll would probably never be known.

Six strong aftershocks rattled a remote southern Indian archipelago where officials said residents were facing starvation. Hong Kong seismologists said quakes between magnitude 5.2 and 6.1 shook the Andaman and Nicobar islands, where tsunami casualties are not known but feared to be in the thousands.

Officials and volunteers in the Andamans struggled to deliver tons of rations, clothes, bedsheets, oil, and other items, hampered by lack of transportation.

"There is starvation. People haven't had food or water for at least five days. There are carcasses. There will be an epidemic," said a member of Andaman's parliament, Manoranjan Bhakta.

Aid continued to arrive in stricken areas. Foreign military cargo jets brought blankets, medicine and the first of 80 000 body bags to Banda Aceh. Convoys distributed sugar, rice and lentils in Sri Lanka; India dispatched a ship converted into a 50-bed hospital.

A dozen US Navy vessels headed for the Indonesian and Sri Lankan coasts, about 3 000km apart, carrying supplies, medical teams and more than 40 helicopters to distribute them.

But bureaucratic delays, fuel shortages, impassable roads and long distances blocked many of the supplies, including bottled water, plastic sheeting and medicines, from reaching the needy.

In an airport hangar in Medan, south of Banda Aceh, thousands of boxes of basics had accumulated since Monday and were going nowhere.

"Hundreds of tonnes, it keeps coming in," said Rizal Nordin, governor of Northern Sumatra province. He blamed the backlog on an initial "lack of coordination" that was slowly improving.

- AP