Ten days after the tsunami devastated large swaths of the south and south-east Asian coastlines, aid agencies battling to bring relief to millions left homeless and starving on Tuesday warned that the full scale of the disaster has yet to be revealed.
As the known death toll approached 150 000 on Tuesday night, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated there are more than half a million people injured and in need of medical care in six countries across the region.
The WHO said it is a ”race against time” to help prevent diseases such as cholera and malaria breaking out among five million displaced people.
Despite the biggest global relief operation mounted to date, torrential rain and flooding as well as a crippled plane on a runway continued to hamper efforts to get food and medical supplies to some of the worst affected areas in Indonesia, where the United Nations has warned the death toll could rise ”exponentially”.
Stark warnings included:
- Jan Egeland, the United Nations’s relief coordinator, said there are likely to be ”tens of thousands” of further deaths in western Sumatra.
- Aid workers in Indonesia’s Aceh province said they found villages where 80% of the population had been killed, while in the town of Meulaboh, where 40 000 are thought to have died, ”tens of thousands” more need immediate assistance.
- The UN World Food Programme said it believes hundreds of Burmese fishermen died in the tsunami, unaccounted for in official government figures.
- There was growing concern about the fate of children orphaned in the disaster after the UN Children’s Fund’s executive director, Carol Bellamy, said it has received reports from a number of NGOs about child-trafficking syndicates operating in Indonesia.
Speaking from the UN headquarters in New York, Egeland said the death toll in Sumatra, which has already reached 90 000, is likely to keep on climbing.
Aid workers originally thought the island’s northern province, Aceh, had taken the brunt of the earthquake and tsunami, but they now believe the low-lying western coastline was hardest hit.
”Many, many of these villages are gone,” Egeland said. ”There is no trace of them. They had hardly roads before. Now they have nothing. The death toll will grow exponentially on the western coast of Sumatra.
”What will be the final toll we will never know, but we may be talking of tens of thousands of further deaths in this area.”
Vital aid was stopped from reaching the stricken province of Aceh for more than 15 hours after the runway in the capital was blocked by a plane that hit a herd of cows that had strayed on to the runway.
The accident left hundreds of aid planes backed up around the region unable to make deliveries to the area.
Egeland said torrential rains and flooding were also hampering relief efforts across the region, although aid was reaching the majority.
”We are making extraordinary progress in reaching the majority of the people affected in the majority of the areas. We are also experiencing extraordinary obstacles in many, many areas.”
The United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, visiting Phuket in Thailand on Tuesday on his way to a global aid summit in Jakarta, vowed Washington will help the millions hit by the tsunami to rebuild.
He said he hoped American aid for Asia’s tsunami victims will strengthen US and regional security by removing any discontent that could fuel terrorism.
”We hope that through these efforts people will see that the US is committed to helping those who are in poverty … We believe it is in the best interest of those countries and it’s in our best interest and it dries up those pools of dissatisfaction which might give rise to terrorist activity.”
In Britain, banks and credit-card companies agreed to waive transaction fees on pledges to all charities, after it emerged that about £300 000 was feared lost in charges.
The British public’s donations to the tsunami disaster appeals approached £90-million on Tuesday as the Cabinet dispatched the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to the region to assess long-term reconstruction, and reassure stranded tourists that their immediate needs will be met by diplomatic staff on the ground.
It was also confirmed that there will be a three-minute silence throughout the country at noon on Wednesday to honour the dead and missing. Flags will be flown at half-mast.
As his Cabinet colleague, International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, flies to Banda Aceh, Straw will represent the G8 group of major industrial states — of which Britain holds the 2005 presidency — at the crisis donors’ summit in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Thursday.
With British Prime Minister Tony Blair back in London to chair his first ministerial meeting since the crisis broke on the day he left for his family beach holiday in Egypt, it was confirmed that both he and Michael Howard are among the millions to make family donations to a fund now likely to top £100-million.
On Tuesday, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, unveiled plans to suspend debt repayments of the worst-hit countries, subject to agreement next week by the Paris Club of creditor states. It will save them £1,6-billion.
On Tuesday night, No 10 said Blair spoke to US President George Bush on Tuesday for the second time since the disaster, though their talks also ranged over Iraq and the peace process. He also telephoned the presidents of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, who are said to have expressed particular thanks for the scale of the British public’s response.
But one aid group urged donors to stop sending it money for tsunami victims, saying it has collected enough funds to manage its relief effort.
The French and German branches of the medical aid group Médécins sans Frontières said they have €40-million and €20-million respectively, enough to finance the emergency medical aid projects they are supporting in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
Their decision surprised other aid groups, drawing criticism that it could undercut an unprecedented surge of public donations. — Guardian Unlimited Â