The Hindu : International : Jakarta admits slow delivery of relief

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Friday, Apr 01, 2005

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International

Jakarta admits slow delivery of relief

— AP

An Indonesian soldier carries an injured earthquake survivor being flown out for medical treatment, at Polonia Air Base in the provincial capital of Medan, North Sumatra, on Thursday.

GUNUNG SITOLI (INDONESIA), MARCH 31. Indonesia's Government acknowledged on Thursday it has been slow in delivering food and water to victims of the nation's latest massive earthquake, as rescuers pulled survivors and bodies out of rubble on two islands.

The Government lowered its estimated death toll from the tragedy to about 400 to 500 people from an earlier estimate of 1,000, while the United Nations raised its toll to 624.

Survivors living under tarpaulins since Monday night's 8.7-magnitude quake said they were going hungry.

But in a sign of hope among the devastation, rescuers on Thursday pulled a 13-year-old girl alive from a collapsed five-story building in Nias and a group of 11 Western surfers who had been missing since the quake were found alive by a search helicopter, the Swedish Foreign Ministry said.

A baby girl was also born in a makeshift hospital in an abandoned school.

``We will not give up hope. We will keep looking,'' Red Cross official, Herri Ansyah, said.

Tourists found

The tourists — three Britons, two Swedes, two Canadians, two French, one American and a German — were found on Nias island, which is renowned for its consistently great surfing conditions.

``They're feeling well, considering the circumstances,'' Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman, Christian Karlsson, said. ``They've been sleeping outside. ... They've boiled water and food. I'm not sure what they've eaten, but I guess it's coconuts.''

Indonesian Social Affairs Minister Bachtiar Chamsyah was confronted by hungry and angry survivors in Nias' main town, Gunung Sitoli, and later admitted the Government had responded slowly to the humanitarian crisis. ``The problem is distribution. We admit the distribution has been slow,'' he said later.

``We can understand that people are dissatisfied, but thanks be to God the situation is getting better.''

In pouring rain, the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, toured Gunung Sitoli, visiting a mosque and praying with a Catholic priest at a church being used as a makeshift morgue. The Government said on Thursday that so far 279 bodies had been buried and the final toll would likely be between 400-500. — AP

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