Aid effort hampered by stricken plane

The main airport on Indonesia’s tsunami-battered Sumatra island was closed today after a relief plane hit a herd of cows, hampering the world’s still-fragile efforts to get aid to victims of the disaster.

World leaders were heading to southern Asia to get a first-hand glimpse of the damage and hammer out a plan to help the millions of victims.

A donor conference was scheduled to take place in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, 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 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.

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

Planes were grounded today 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.

“We’ve immediately closed the airport,” said Adri Gunawan, head of air traffic control. “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 Tuesday.

Leaders from stricken nations and world donors, meanwhile, geared up to meet in Indonesia on Thursday to iron out problems in coordinating an unprecedented relief operation.

They will also discuss an ambitious plan to set up an Indian Ocean tsunami warning system.