Food aid for tsunami victims

HUNDREDS of thousands of people in tsunami-ravaged Indonesia will need food handouts in the coming months while a measles epidemic looms in the hardest-hit province.

About 790,000 survivors in Aceh and neighbouring North Sumatra province remain unable to feed themselves and will depend on food rations for many more months, said World Food Programme spokesman Inigo Alvarez.

Indonesian officials have said recovery workers pulled 1,165 more bodies from debris left after the December 26 earthquake and tsunami that hit Aceh province, bringing the country’s death toll to 121,347.