Slow progress in Aceh

By Kate McGeown
BBC News

Aid is being held up at the tiny airports of Banda Aceh and Medan

Aid agencies in the Indonesian province of Aceh are facing a logistical nightmare in their efforts to reach those affected by last Sunday's earthquake.

As both the small provincial airport and the airstrip in nearby Medan are clogged up with traffic, it is proving extremely difficult to get relief supplies where they are most needed.

"It's hugely frustrating for everyone," said Mona Laczo, the East Asia co-ordinator for the charity Oxfam.

"We have around 20 tons of gear sitting in Medan that we're desperate to get there. It feels so near but so far," she said.

With an estimated 500,000 people now said to be in desperate need of food and water, even the government has admitted its response has been slow and chaotic.

Minister for People's Welfare Alwi Shihab told the BBC: "The first two days we were in panic."

"We estimated the death toll was 4,000. Today people are talking about 140,000."

It's not normal that a week after a disaster we still don't have access to many areas Olivier Longue, Action Against Hunger,

Even now, the aid effort appears to be suffering from a lack of co-ordination, according to correspondents in the region.

Medical personnel from the charity Medecins Sans Frontiers told the BBC that they arrived at one spot on Friday only to find that an Indonesian team was already there.

"It's difficult in this type of situation," one of the doctors conceded. "It's a situation that needs more coordination and all the information centralised."

There are also reports of well-intentioned but poorly thought-out efforts by local volunteers. Refugee camps are said to be inundated with clothes no one needs, while there is still a shortage of drinking water.

Massive operation

Part of the difficulty is the sheer scale of the disaster.

According to correspondents in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, many of those who should have taken charge of the situation are themselves among the dead.

Another issue is the lack of infrastructure. There were few roads and bridges in Aceh to begin with, and most of those have now been rendered unusable by the earthquake.

Survivors of the disaster are finally being given much-needed supplies

Olivier Longue, director of the charity Action Against Hunger, said another problem was the government's continued reluctance to allow charities to work in some areas.

He said his own supplies were stuck in Medan, waiting until the charity had permission to move them to the western coastal town of Meulaboh - one of the hardest hit areas, near the earthquake's epicentre.

Before the disaster happened, almost all international aid organisations were banned from Aceh, because of an ongoing separatist conflict. According to Mr Longue, the authorities are still reticent about allowing foreigners into some places.

"I've been doing this job for 15 years, and it's not normal that a week after a disaster we still don't have access to many areas," he said.

"There was a major disaster in Bam [in Iran] last year, but we were able to be in control of the situation fairly quickly. Today, quite frankly, we're not in control at all."

Clean drinking water

In terms of aid, one of the most pressing concerns is to provide victims of the tsunami with clean drinking water, to prevent water-borne diseases.

Tsunami disaster: How to help

But as Jurgen Weyand, the head of the Red Cross mission in Indonesia, explained, aid agencies cannot distribute water sanitation equipment until they have made an accurate assessment on the ground.

"If I move a highly sophisticated water supply system, I want to make sure it's going to the place where it's most needed," he said.

A Red Cross assessment team was finally able to reach Meulaboh on Sunday, and the agency can now concentrate on getting water purification supplies to the area.

There are still some places, though, where victims of the disaster have yet to see any relief supplies.

According to correspondents in the region, it will not be possible to access some outlying regions for several weeks.

Even if people from these areas manage to make it to the larger towns in search of help, they still face considerable hardship.

Oxfam is working in some of the refugee camps in Banda Aceh, which have been set up for these streams of incoming refugees.

Clean drinking water is one of the most important priorities

"There are no facilities, no toilets, so people are just going in the bush. Some of them have diarrhoea and they don't make it that far," said Oxfam's Mona Laczo.

"If people don't get clean water fast then more of them will start getting sick."

One of Oxfam's main priorities is to encourage those in need to move closer together, making it easier to distribute aid.

"In the next few days the aim is to consolidate these people into fewer larger camps," Ms Laczo said.

The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontiers is concentrating on providing mobile clinics, complete with doctors and psychologists, to help the injured and traumatised victims.

Erwin Vantland, a spokesman for the charity, said the team had also provided body bags and disinfectant to those clearing up the thousands of corpses still littering the streets.

More that 50 international agencies are now in Aceh, and the aid effort is gearing up all the time, despite the many obstacles.

But it is still a long way from the kind of relief operation which the size of this disaster demands - and aid agencies are likely to have much work to do for a long time to come.