U.S. Adds Ships, Helicopters to Ferry Tsunami Aid
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The U.S. added two ships and doubled the number of helicopters to carry aid in Indonesia’s Aceh province, the hardest hit area in the South Asian tsunami disaster that killed more than 150,000 people, as the United Nations prepared a new aid request for at least $650 million. The USS Bonhomme Richard and USS Duluth today arrived in Sumatran waters and airlifted more than 200,000 pounds (90,000 kilograms) from two warehouses for distribution to areas unreachable by road, the U.S. embassy in Jakarta said in an e- mailed statement. The ships carry 25 helicopters each and more than doubled the number of U.S. aircraft to carry aid. About 40 countries have pledged as much as $3 billion in aid for nations in Asia and Africa where coastlines were inundated by a tsunami resulting from the Dec. 26 magnitude-9 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra. Indonesia will host a summit of Asian leaders in Jakarta tomorrow to discuss the situation and announce the new UN appeal. Among UN agencies, the World Food Program will ask for $185 million, the UN Children’s Fund for $120 million and the World Health Organization for $60 million. While some of the money already pledged will go toward the consolidated appeal, which hasn’t been completed yet, further donations will be needed, UN relief coordinator Jan Egeland said. In the latest pledges, Germany today increased its aid to $688 million while British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the U.K. will give “hundreds of millions of pounds” once requirements have been assessed. Millions of people across the U.K. and Europe observed three minutes of silence at noon GMT today in honor of the tsunami victims. Separately, the International Underwriting Association said that total insured losses are expected to range between $5 billion and $10 billion. Many of the losses probably weren’t insured, the association said in a statement. Coordination “Coordination is a must among government, civil society organizations, international agencies and others,” said Emmy Hafild, secretary general of the National Civil Society Coalition, a Jakarta-based organization. “People in Banda Aceh cannot get enough food and other basic necessities because they don’t have identification.” Secretary of State Colin Powell earlier today toured Aceh province in north Sumatra, which was the worst hit area by the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami. Powell has “a better understanding” of what’s needed to help the Indonesian government deal with the disaster after touring Banda Aceh, he said in comments broadcast live on CNN at a press conference in the capital of Aceh province. “I have never seen anything like this,” Powell said. The U.S. will partially lift an embargo on supplying military hardware to Indonesia to provide spare parts for Hercules planes delivering aid, Agence France-Presse reported. The embargo was imposed in the wake of alleged human rights violations by Indonesian troops in 1999 around a vote that led to East Timor’s independence from Jakarta. Remote Areas Aid efforts are being hampered by the destruction of roads, bridges and other infrastructure. “Many of the places are very difficult to access, especially the port areas,” Michael Elmquist, Indonesian director for the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said today by telephone from the area. “There are many places where dead bodies haven’t been recovered.” WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook said in Jakarta that as many as 150,000 people are at “extreme risk” for diarrheal diseases such as cholera or dysentery. “If basic needs, particularly access to safe drinking water, are not urgently restored to all populations by the end of this week, WHO fears that outbreaks of infectious disease could result in a similar number of fatalities as occurred due to the direct impact of the tsunami,” the agency said in a statement on the UN Web site. While no disease outbreaks have been reported so far, WHO confirms an increase in isolated cases of diarrheal diseases in camps for displaced people. |