Relief comes slowly to hard-hit quake areas

Survivors fought over packs of noodles in the quake-devastated streets of Indonesia’s Banda Aceh, while tons of aid was left stranded in the airport as government troops searched for vehicles and fuel to transport it.

In Sri Lanka, reports of measles and diarrhoea were beginning to reach health authorities, causing concern of an epidemic, said Thilak Ranaviraj, the government’s top official handling relief efforts.

Clean drinking water was in short supply on the devastated island and logistics remained a nightmare with the government and rebels who control regions in the north and east accusing one another of failing to do enough. The government refused one offer of help from Israel because it included soldiers.

“The biggest problem we are facing right now is the disposal of dead bodies and co-ordinating the relief efforts to reach the most affected areas,” said Migel Bermeo, head of the United Nations’ agencies in Colombo.

Governments worldwide have pledged tens of millions of pounds to help victims of the disaster, which killed tens of thousands and left millions more homeless in a dozen countries from Southeast Asia to Africa.

Millions of people shocked by the scale of the disaster began seeking ways to transform their sympathy into practical help: Housewives, tycoons, local charities and churches dug deep to make donations.

“The response has been overwhelming,” said Avinash Singh Gill, first secretary at the Indian High Commission in Singapore, which has been accepting checks and bank drafts to fund that country’s mammoth aid and reconstruction effort.

The disaster caused by Sunday’s massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami posed unprecedented challenges, experts said.

Relief organisations used to dealing with one or two crises at a time now have a dozen or more disaster zones and a death toll rising daily. If diseases such as cholera and dengue fever break out, they could kill as many more, World health officials have warned.

“Millions and millions of people are affected,” said UN Under-secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland, who is also the UN emergency relief coordinator.

“They have had their water supplies destroyed, they have lost their livelihoods, homes, and many of them have lost relatives,” he said.

In Indonesia, supplies – including 175 tons of rice and at least 100 doctors - had reached the provincial capital of Banda Aceh today. Four hospitals across Aceh were being set up and the navy was sending ships with tons of food and medicine to the island’s west coast, which is impossible to reach overland.

“This is the first time we are able to send help there,” military spokesman Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin said. “We have very sketchy information about how many died there and the extent of the devastation. We’re having extraordinary problems communicating there.”

Indonesian officials admitted a bottleneck at a regional airport, lack of fuel for relief vehicles and washed-out roads resulted in aid stacking up in airport hangers in regional hub of Medan.

Survivors complained of running out of food in Banda Aceh and many were forced to seek shelter in government offices, mosques and schools, or were simply living in the streets.

“The aid is here but we are having trouble co-ordinating it,” said Dr Kace Keihulu, of Medicines Sans Frontiers, or Doctors Without Borders. “We need to know how we can help.”

In India, the coastal highway in Tamil Nadu state was buzzing with convoys of aid trucks, loaded with clothing, food and tarpaulins. Large posters plastered on the trucks advertised the aid agencies and, in some cases, political parties joined the parade.

Unicef said it would be providing thick cotton quilts, bed sheets and mats to relief camps and hospitals. Staff from the UN children’s agency described scenes of utter devastation as they began delivering aid in the south.

“Villages have become ghost villages with broken, empty houses and the stench of decomposed human bodies prompting the police where to look for victims,” said Anupam Srivastava.

Thousands of families were living in camps being run by churches and aid groups.

In Thailand, an international airlift was underway to ferry critical aid and medical supplies to devastated resort island of Phuket and to take home shellshocked tourists who survived earthquake-powered killer waves.

Jets laden with supplies from France and Australia were among the first to touch down.

Almost all of the nations hit were poor and developing, and will be largely reliant on outside help to cope.