Food aid goes bad sitting at ports
The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh/Lhokseumawe
Some food aid packages are starting to spoil at ports as they await ships destined for tsunami-hit areas in Aceh and North Sumatra.
Meanwhile, thousands of survivors were still without food as of Monday, a week after the catastrophe devastated the two provinces and seven Indian Ocean states.
The lack of standing infrastructure in Aceh has hampered the efforts of relief workers to distribute aid timely to survivors, while airlifts via helicopter have only been able to reach limited numbers.
The utter destruction of coastal roads along western Sumatra has prompted aid agencies to use ferries to Padang, West Sumatra, before traveling by road to Aceh via Medan.
"There are still a lot of people there. Some are seriously injured. Some are already dead," a western Aceh villager, Fajari, told Agence France-Presse at a Banda Aceh hospital after he was rescued on Sunday by a U.S. Navy helicopter.
He was referring to his hometown of Patek.
Fajari, 29, lost his wife and two children when tidal waves rushed through their home in the fishing village. He had not eaten for several days until the helicopter found him.
Security forces of the U.S., Japan, Australia and France have sent aircraft or naval vessels to the region, while Britain is exploring additional ways in which its armed forces might provide assistance.
Thousands of navy personnel and medics, as well as heavy equipment operators, are in northern Sumatra from at least 40 countries and working together in the relief and clearing effort, reported AFP.
For example, with transport in short supply, Malaysian teams were offering rides to Chinese and Mexican teams.
The official death toll in Indonesia now reaches 94,000, but is expected to continue to rise.
Jan Egeland, head of the United Nations emergency relief, said compared to other countries affected by the tsunami, Indonesia lagged behind in aid distribution.
"Ninety percent of our problems are now in areas (in Indonesia) because they are more remote, because the damage was much bigger, because the roads are more damaged, because the airstrips are fewer and they are more damaged," said Egeland.
The UN has repeatedly expressed concerns that isolated survivors may not receive aid for weeks, until roads and bridges that were destroyed were rebuilt.
Lack of coordination has also been blamed for the aid and supplies accumulating at hangars, warehouses and ports, while a source in Banda Aceh said dozens of European medical staff seemed uncertain of what to do without any immediate tasks.
Coordination is one of the main issues expected to be raised at Thursday's international emergency summit in Jakarta.
At the capital's Tanjung Priok port, food aid packages, including rice and instant noodles, started to spoil without any sea transportation heading to Aceh.
The continuous influx of aid without adequate means for distribution has raised concerns of further complications, including the deaths of survivors from starvation, dehydration and exposure.
Rampant piracy in the busy Malacca Strait is another stumbling block for the delivery of aid to tsunami-hit regions.
"Pirates are a real concern off the west coast," the UN Joint Logistics Centre said in a report on Indonesian relief operations.
In North Aceh, thousands started on Monday to leave refugee camps for home, and Regent Teuku Alamsyah Banta told The Jakarta Post that the some 4,000 people who had voluntarily left were those with homes that were partially intact. They cited a shortage of clean water and poor sanitation as reasons to brave the devastation at home.
"We're scared to go home ... but here it's difficult to go to the bathroom," said Suryati, who is leaving camp.
In Banda Aceh clean water was also a much waited gift as some 1,000 people queued for filtered water from Australia, who repeatedly asked whether it had to be boiled first, reports said.