Race to deliver aid to tsunami survivors

One of the biggest, costliest and most complex international relief efforts ever mounted got under way on Monday, with governments and aid organisations sending money and aid teams to bring relief to survivors of the Indian Ocean earthquake.

With at least nine countries affected from the Horn of Africa to Indonesia, including some heavily populated areas, the daunting magnitude of the task was gradually becoming clear.

”It’s a disaster of catastrophic if not biblical proportions,” said Mike Kiernan of Save the Children in the UK. ”It takes your breath away when you look at a map.

”Tens of thousands have lost their lives, but there are also hundreds of thousands who have lost everything. But for a family the numbers mean nothing. When you see a child in your home swept away without a moment’s warning – that’s the human cost.”

The chief UN relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, said the recovery effort was unlike anything the UN had ever attempted because so many different areas were affected.

”This may be the worst natural disaster in recent history because it is affecting so many heavily populated, coastal areas,” he told CNN.

Assessing needs in areas with disrupted communications and on isolated islands is a formidable challenge, as are the logistical complexities of delivering aid. It is also a race against time to prevent more deaths from disease, hunger and thirst.

”Many more people could die in the coming days,” said Jasmine Whitbread, the international director of UK-based charity group, Oxfam. ”The flood waters will have contaminated drinking water and food will be scarce.”

The relief efforts will also have to tackle the longer-term problems of those who have lost their homes and livelihoods. ”We will be at it for many months to come,” said David Alexander, international director of the British Red Cross.

Titon Mitra of Care International said many of those affected were farmers. ”Their crops will have been wiped out. That means they will have problems with food security for the next six months.”

The UN was ready to offer any assistance needed, the secretary general, Kofi Annan, said. The organisation’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs offered emer gency grants to governments for immediate humanitarian needs. ”This is the first step in what will surely be a larger United Nations response to catastrophic losses,” said Egeland.

Australia, which has thousands of miles of coast facing the Indian Ocean but was largely unaffected, pledged almost £4m and sent two freight planes to Malaysia with water purification supplies, blankets and bottled water.

The US released $400 000 and said it expected to increase that to $15m. ”Some 20 000-plus lives have been lost in a few moments but the lingering effects will be there for years,” the secretary of state, Colin Powell, said.

The EU promised â,¬3-million, with the prospect of more to come. ”There is no doubt that we are talking about substantial sums as this is one of the world’s worst natural disasters for many years,” said Louis Michel, the commissioner responsible for humanitarian aid. ”The commission is able to mobilise up to â,¬30m promptly through its emergency procedures.”

The French foreign minister, Michel Barnier, was heading for Sri Lanka and Thailand on a plane carrying up to 25 tonnes of humanitarian aid, his office said.

Médecins sans Frontières, like many aid organisations, was trying to assess needs on the ground. ”We always put small fact-finding teams in first,” said a spokesman, Martyn Broughton. MSF was preparing to send a cargo plane with 32 tonnes of relief supplies.

Oxfam also said it was assessing the situation, though its staff had already been at work in Sri Lanka. The charity’s headquarters in Trincomalee was hit by the floods, which destroyed communications and swept away relief items such as water tanks.

Care International said it would focus its efforts on Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the eastern coast of India, but was still awaiting crucial information such as the number of people displaced and the damage to infrastructure. Mr Mitra said there was a danger that some parts of the region, such as the Maldives, might receive too little attention.

Aid on the way