Tsunami Disaster - Annan says logistics is biggest challenge by UN News / Reuters / AFP 11:49am 1st Jan, 2005   January 3, 2005. (Reuters / AFP)    Hungry and sick survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami are waiting for aid in growing desperation as a multinational aid operation tries to reach remote towns devastated by the waves.    The United Nations says 1.8 million survivors need food as dehydration, disease and hunger threaten to add to a disaster that some tallies say has claimed at least 143,000 lives. However, the UN says the world's generous response to the crisis gives grounds for hope.    South Asian airports groan under the weight of hundreds of flights carrying medicines, food and shelter as the world's biggest relief operation since World War Two, steps into high gear. "The world is really coming together here in a way that we probably have never seen before," UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland said.    Money has yet to overcome the logistical nightmare of distributing the aid, especially to remote parts of Aceh on Sumatra island where roads and airstrips have been washed away. Mr Egeland says that logistical bottlenecks in Sri Lanka and the Maldives are also easing but 90 per cent of the problem remained in Indonesia, which bore the brunt of the catastrophe.    "Overall I am more optimistic today than I was yesterday and especially the day before yesterday, that we, the global community, will be able to face up to this enormous challenge," he said. "The international system is working."    US Navy helicopters have began airlifting starving survivors from the isolated west coast of Aceh and taking them to the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. The Australian and US militaries are providing C-130 Hercules transport planes to drop supplies, while further helicopter support is coming from Singapore and Malaysia.    "It's absolutely life saving," Michael Elmquist, the chief of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Indonesia, said. "They are the only ones who have the capacity to reach those parts of the population right now."    Mr Egeland says relief teams hope to reach all of the estimated 700,000 hungry in Sri Lanka within three more days. However, it could take longer before enough food aid gets to nearly 1 million in need in hard-to-reach parts of Indonesia, where the known death toll has topped 94,000.    At the top of the list of needs is water and sanitation equipment, to head off expected outbreaks of water-borne infections that are spread through tainted community water supplies. In Indonesia, UNICEF has said reports are coming in of children starting to die of pneumonia. UN health officials say disease could kill maybe 50,000. More than 100,000 people are living in temporary shelters and camps in Indonesia alone, many suffering from diarrhoea, fever, respiratory infections, headaches and stomach problems.    Forty countries lost nationals in addition to the 13 directly hit. India lost 12,700, and around half of the 5,000 killed in Thailand are foreign tourists. Among European nations, Sweden suffered the greatest loss, although it cut the estimated number of missing citizens by about a fifth on Sunday to 2,915, with 52 confirmed dead. Many of the recovered bodies are awaiting DNA analysis for identification, while others washed out to sea may never be recovered.    January 2, 2005. (Reuters)    Tsunami aid pledges jump to $2.6 billion.    UN secretary-general Kofi Annan will visit tsunami stricken Indonesia next week, as the world increased aid pledges to $2.6 billion for tsunami-hit areas in south Asia. Mr Annan was invited to go to the Indonesia capital of Jakarta on Thursday and officials said he had accepted and would probably issue a world appeal for relief from there, rather than New York.    More than 1 million people in Indonesia, especially in Indonesia's Aceh province as well as 700,000 in Sri Lanka will need food aid for months as a result of the disaster, Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief coordinator told his daily news conference. He said 140,000 people in Sri Lanka were already receiving food supplies.    Mr Egeland increased the overall amount donated from some $1.5 billion to $2.6 billion, mainly due to a $640 million pledge from Japan, the highest single donation to date, as well as other nations. The United States has promised $383 million and the World Bank $320 million.    "We are at the moment recording pledges of [$2.6 billion] for emergency phase and recovery phase," Mr Egeland told his daily news conference. "It's the biggest outpouring of relief in such a short period of time." He said that was more than all the aid received by the United Nations in 2004 for such places as Sudan's Darfur region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo combined, adding: "international compassion has never been like this."    Mr Egeland has estimated deaths at 150,000 but said there were probably many more unrecorded fatalities in remote fishing villages. But he said said "the biggest constraints are logistical" in getting aid to victims who survived the tsunami, which he estimated killed at least 150,000 people.    More than half the dead were in Sumatra. Helicopters, air traffic control units, boats and landing draft as well as cargo planes and several hundreds trucks were urgently needed. "Military logistics as valuable as cash or gold (to) for us get there in the race against the clock," Mr Egeland said. "We need to make small damaged airstrips some of the busiest airports in the world," Mr Egeland said, adding that relief workers needed helicopter carriers on ships "that can be be outside on the coasts and not clog the airstrips."    He said he had spoken about logistical needs in a telephone conference telephone conference with the US-led "core group," which includes India, Japan, Australia and the United Nations.    He also related needs to Britain, Canada, China, the European Union and the Netherlands. "Military assets are as valuable as cash or gold because (to) get there in the race against the clock," he said.    The United Nations is working with the International Committee of the Red Cross and coordinating thousands of independent relief groups to get food, medicine, generators, and transport to the millions of afflicted people.    31 December 2004 (UN News)    With governments and international organizations having increased their combined pledges to help the victims of last Sunday's Asian tsunami to between $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned today that the biggest challenge is now overcoming the logistics of distributing aid and relief supplies to the hardest-hit areas.    After meeting at UN Headquarters in New York with United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, Mr. Annan told reporters that while "we're doing very well for the moment" in raising funds, bottlenecks remain in delivering aid, especially in the Indonesian province of Aceh, which is closest to the epicentre of the undersea earthquake that sparked the tsunami and home to the most deaths.    At the same time, more funds will be required in the months to come, said the Secretary-General, who today released a video message urging generous contributions and pointing out that "it is crucial that we sustain our response for the long term because the effects of this tragedy will be felt for a very long time."    Media reports say at least 120,000 people are confirmed dead across the Indian Ocean region following the tsunami and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said the final death toll could climb beyond 150,000. About 1 million people are homeless and humanitarian agencies estimate that 5 million people need relief.    "We will never ever have the absolute definite figure because there are many nameless fishermen and villagers that have just gone and we have no chance of finding out how many they were," Mr. Egeland said.    Mr. Annan said that he discussed with Mr. Powell how UN humanitarian agencies, Member States and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can better coordinate their relief efforts so that the most aid reaches the maximum number of people as quickly and efficiently as possible. "We're going to need major logistical support - airplanes, helicopters and air controllers - to assist us move the produce and the goods as quickly as possible so that we don't have bottlenecks," he stated.    Senior UN officials have been meeting daily with staff from NGOs such as the Red Cross and the Red Crescent to discuss the coordination of the relief effort. They are also in close contact with the World Bank, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Bank and the governments of the affected nations.    Mr. Egeland said daunting logistical constraints were hampering relief efforts, particularly in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. In Aceh, for example, many of the roads are gone and many airstrips have been so badly damaged they are unusable.    Responding to a reporter's question, Mr. Powell said the UN was "playing a leadership role" in dealing with the aftermath of the tsunami, and the so-called "core group" of nations formed by the US earlier this week to help out had been set up to support the UN as "a coordination mechanism" for countries with links to the region and military or civilian assets that could be easily dispatched.    Mr. Annan and Mr. Powell said they saw one possible positive outcome of the tsunami: the two sides of the civil conflicts in Sri Lanka and Aceh have stopped fighting and started working together to help those in need. "I hope that collaboration is not going to end with the crisis and that they will be able to build on that and use these new dynamics to resolve their own differences and we will be encouraging that," Mr. Annan said.    The total amount of aid and debt relief promised by countries and international organizations jumped steeply after the US announced today that it would increase its pledge to $350 million. Mr. Egeland said he had "never ever seen such an outpouring of international assistance in any natural disaster ever."    But he added that it was important for the UN "to keep on the donors and keep them to the pledges because many make generous pledges that they do not necessarily honour. Here we have 40 nations pledging. I'm confident that all those who have pledged so far will spend all the money if we are good in getting well organized in the reconstruction and rehabilitation phase."
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