Aid plane crashes into cows

2005-01-04 14:29

Banda Aceh - The main airport at Indonesia's tsunami-battered Sumatra Island was closed on Tuesday after a relief plane hit a herd of cows, hampering the world's still-fragile efforts to get aid to victims of the disaster that devastated the region and left nearly 150 000 dead. Hospitals overflowed with injured and malnourished survivors.

World leaders were heading to southern Asia to get a firsthand glimpse of the damage and hammer out a plan to help the millions of victims, with United States Secretary of State Colin Powell who was in Thailand on Tuesday, pledging America's full support.

A donor conference was scheduled in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Thursday.

Relief workers said they expect the death toll to soar by tens of thousands because surveys of the western coast of Sumatra, which was closest to the December 26 quake, show it was hit much harder than previously thought.

Scores of villages have been flattened, and in some areas few survivors have been spotted.

Prevention of flights

But rushing aid to anyone still alive has proved a nightmare, with roads and sea jetties washed away.

Planes on Tuesday were grounded by the closure of the small airport in Banda Aceh, the main city on the island's northern tip.

The flying was left to helicopters, mainly based on US Navy vessels anchored offshore, to drop food parcels.

No one was hurt when a Boeing 737 relief cargo plane hit cows after it landed at Banda Aceh airport, but the closure of the runway highlighted the vulnerability of the relief effort as waves of aid began pouring into Sumatra, where an estimated 100 000 people died.

Adri Gunawan, head of air traffic control said: "We've immediately closed the airport. For the rest of the day, aid flights will be prevented from flying here. It's really bad."

The airport had been swamped with round-the-clock traffic, with dozens of aircraft hauling in water, biscuits and medicine.

It was to remain closed until authorities got heavy equipment to move the cargo plane, but that was not expected to happen until late on Tuesday.

Patients better in hospitals

American pilots, meanwhile, were ferrying survivors to medical help in Banda Aceh, an operation that created yet another bottleneck: overcrowded hospitals.

About a dozen people were lying on stretchers on Tuesday on the sidewalk outside the Fakina Hospital.

Inside, many rooms have no power, blood is splattered on walls and there are not enough stands for intravenous fluid bags being used to rehydrate survivors, instead they are dangling from cords strung across the ceiling.

Still, some patients said they were better off in the hospital than in their shattered villages.

A 60-year-old farmer, Away Ludin, who was airlifted out of a village on Sumatra and was at the hospital said: "I thought this is the end, I'm going to die."

"I was so shocked and surprised to see these white people coming into the village. I'm so glad they were there."

- AP