Supply efforts are stymied; deaths near 80,000

Efforts to bring supplies to displaced stymied while U.S. responds to criticism of slowness to help

BY MICHAEL ROTHFELD | STAFF WRITER

December 30, 2004

This photograph taken by tourist Eric Skitzi shows a tsunami wave hitting the beach of Batu Ferringhi on Penang island, Malaysia on Dec. 26. (GETTY IMAGES / December 26, 2004)

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - Mudslides and downed bridges blocked relief supplies from regions near the epicenter of Sunday's earthquake for a fourth straight day yesterday, isolating hundreds of thousands of Indonesians and raising fears that large numbers of the displaced could die from starvation or disease.

In Sumatra, the Florida-sized Indonesian island walloped by the tsunami spawned by the quake, the view from the air was of whole villages ripped apart, covered in mud and seawater. In one of the few signs of life, a handful of desperate people scavenged a beach for food.

In Sri Lanka, where more than 20,000 have been reported killed, the smell of decaying corpses lingered in the air of towns throughout the tsanami-stricken south of the country, and temples, schools and public buildings were filling with people left homeless.

In India, where at least 7,000 people died in the massive wave, families lighted funeral pyres on beaches in the southern state of Kerala and cremated their deceased relatives.

With the confirmed death toll approaching 80,000 in 12 Asian and African countries, and amid predictions it will hit 100,000, relief agencies scrambled to respond to the vast arc of devastation. Meanwhile, governments starting with the United States came under increased criticism for the modest size and relative slowness in dispatching aid.

One day after former President Bill Clinton said it was "really important that somebody takes the lead in this," his successor, President George W. Bush, held a news conference at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, to announce he had telephoned the leaders of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia to offer the United States' condolences for their losses.

After a drumbeat of questioning from reporters why he was devoting so much of his time bicycling and clearing brush and not being more assertive after so immense a tragedy, Bush said he was setting up a "core group" of nations with India, Japan and Australia to coordinate disaster relief.

Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas chided Bush for offering only $15 million initially (a sum which has now risen to $35 million) and urged Bush to send a high-level emissary such as Vice President Dick Cheney to the region.

Bush told reporters that criticism by a UN official that wealthy nations had been "stingy" in their response was "misguided and ill-informed." The United States, he said, was "a very generous, kindhearted nation."

"We're still in the stage of immediate help," Bush said. "But slowly but surely, the size of the problem will become known, particularly when it comes to rebuilding infrastructure and community to help these affected parts of the world get back up on their feet."

Altogether, major governments have pledged a total of $220 million and an equal amount in supplies, transport and military help, according to the UN, whereas the Indonesian government has estimated the damage to Aceh province alone will total at least $1.1 billion.

"It's the most demanding situation I've ever seen, and I've seen war situations which are abysmal," said Michael Ceurvorst, a retired U.S. diplomat who served in Asia, Africa and Europe and now lives in Hong Kong. "What we need now is simplification of lines of communication ... this will overwhelm any one person put in charge of it."

In Indonesia, cargo planes touched down bearing everything from lentils to water purifiers. In the country's island of Sumatra, the absence of trucks and fuel has largely prevented aid from getting to scattered refugee camps.

"We are just now hitting the ground," said Pauline Horrill, a programs manager with Doctors Without Borders in Paris. "The priority is to provide food, water and shelter and prevent epidemics."

But on Indonesia's western coast, the towns of Meulaboh and Calang were said to be almost completely wiped out and nearly unreachable for lack of transportation.

"The damage is truly devastating," Indonesian Maj. Gen. Endang Suwarya said. "Seventy-five percent of the west coast is destroyed and some places it's 100 percent. These people are isolated and we will try and get them help."

Meanwhile, locals in many countries took on a relief role themselves. Taxi drivers in Singapore put donation tins in their cars and volunteers in Thailand text-messaged acquaintances to give blood.

In Sri Lanka, at one temple about 50 miles south of Colombo, hundreds of men, women and children, many with bloody bandages from wounds suffered in the tsunami, lay on bare floors. "We don't have a house anymore. No food, no water. Who knows how long we'll be here," said Deepike Madumani, who said there was not enough water to even bathe her 9-month-old daughter.

Thousands of foreign tourists and locals were still missing from southern beach resorts in Thailand, where the death toll was estimated at 1,800. A total of 473 foreigners of 36 nationalities had been confirmed dead by the Thai government.

Overall, more than 4,000 overseas tourists are missing. "We have little hope, except for individual miracles," chairman Jean-Marc Espalioux of the Accor hotel group said of the search for survivors.

With the rise in the death toll yesterday, the disaster became the worst since a cyclone in Bangladesh killed more than 130,000 people in 1991. But the numbers are hardly scientific, said Encho Gospodinov of International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Compiling a remotely accurate number of casualties could take months.

"The last thing we have to worry about is the number of dead because we want to save those who are still alive," said Gospodinov, head of the federation's delegation to the United Nations. "This is a very, very tragic situation, and only God knows what the final number will be."

Besides the death toll on India's mainland, thousands more remain missing on the country's Andaman and Car Nicobar Islands near the quake's epicenter. While 300 were confirmed dead there, that is expected to rise dramatically.

"Car Nicobar has a population of 20,000, and half of them are missing," Lt. Gov. Ram Kapase said. The total death toll in Myanmar (formerly Burma), Maldives, Malaysia, Tanzania, Seychelles, Bangladesh and Kenya remained unchanged at about 330.

The United Nations Children's Fund has been flooded with e-mails and phone calls from well-meaning people offering to adopt children orphaned by the tsunami, said Erica Kochi, a spokeswoman for UNICEF. But, she said, the agency's policy is to use adoption only as a last resort.

The number of children orphaned by the tsunami is still unclear, Kochi said, but the disproportionate number of children killed -- more than a third, by UNICEF estimates -- makes it likely that more parents lost their children than children lost parents.

"We need to explore every single route before a kid can be deemed adoptable," she said.

Material in this report was drawn from staff writers Tina Susman in Sri Lanka and Indrani Sen and Tom McGinty on Long Island; The Jakarta Post, The Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News.