Tsunami survivor found drifting out at sea

A Malaysian tuna ship rescued an Indonesian woman who drifted for five days in the Indian Ocean after last week’s tsunami swept her out to sea from her home on Sumatra island, an official said today.

The unidentified woman in her 20s was spotted alive on Friday floating in waters near Aceh province, a spokesman for the Malaysian International Tuna Port said.

The woman, who suffered leg injuries and was extremely weak, arrived for medical treatment yesterday afternoon at Malaysia’s northwestern Penang island, the spokesman said.

No other details were immediately available.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian government said it will allow the country’s airspace and at least two airports to be used for tsunami relief operations in Indonesia.

The UN World Food Programme is expected to use the Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Airport on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur as a staging post for supplies to be dropped off before they are sent on to Aceh province on Sumatra island, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Malaysia will also let the United States use its airspace and northern Langkawi airport to dispatch humanitarian assistance to Aceh, the statement added.

Separately, the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, expressed hopes that a one-day donors’ summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Thursday would improve how international aid is being co-ordinated to help Asian countries recover from the tsunamis.

For example, some parts of Sri Lanka have a “surplus of aid,” while others have not enough, Azrul Mohammed Khalib, a Kuala Lumpur-based ICRC spokesman, said.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s death toll from last week’s tsunami climbed to 68 after a two-year-old girl died from her injuries yesterday following a week in an intensive care ward.

More than 200 people were injured and more than 7,000 evacuated on Malaysia’s northwestern coast, which is separated from Sumatra by a narrow strait.