Casualty rates ‘defy imagination’ in aid battle

AN ARMY of aid workers faced a race against the clock to supply food and water to millions of tsunami victims yesterday as logistical problems continued to hamper relief efforts.

Efforts were delayed for several hours after the runway at an Indonesian airport, serving as a key hub for relief shipments, was blocked after a plane hit a herd of cows.

A top United Nations official warned the toll of about 150,000 known dead would rise as more bodies were found and survivors fell sick.

In Indonesia’s worst-hit Aceh province, illnesses such as diarrhoea were already rife.

The global outpouring of aid, now at €1.5 billion, was “truly overwhelming”, said UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland.

But, 10 days after the tsunami struck, one of history’s biggest aid efforts faced huge obstacles.

One obstacle was cleared when salvage crews dragged a stranded cargo jet off the runway at Banda Aceh, capital of the Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

The airport closed to fixed-wing craft overnight after the chartered Boeing 737 reportedly hit a water buffalo on landing.

The plane had been handling round-the-clock flights rushing in relief.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said fears were mounting that diseases such as cholera and malaria would break out among the five million who had been displaced around the region.

“It is a race against time,” WHO said in a report.

The UN agency said cases of pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria and skin infections had already emerged in Aceh along with cases of gangrene because survivors had been exposed to polluted water and not treated carefully enough.

On the coast of Aceh, frantic women juggling babies on their hips and men with desperation painted on their faces swarmed around a US Navy helicopter fighting over food and water.

“Sir, please help. Sir, please help,” residents shouted at a foreign reporter. “We need food and medicine,” they said.

More than 94,000 are confirmed killed in northern Indonesia, and nearly 400,000 are refugees.

In the Aceh coastal town of Meulaboh, cut off for a week after the tsunami struck, a Singapore military unit set up a tented treatment centre on Monday.

“The casualty rates in Meulaboh defy imagination,” said an aid worker.