A lifeline into Meulaboh ...finally

SAF team builds two landing points to allow heavy equipment to clear a path inland
By Salim Osman In Meulaboh, Aceh and David Boey, Aboard The Rss Endurance, Off Meulaboh
SINGAPORE Armed Forces engineers achieved a major breakthrough yesterday afternoon when they established two landing points at the coastal town of Meulaboh, which has been cut off since the undersea earthquake and tsunami struck on Dec 26.

As the first excavator rolled onto the beach from the RSS Endurance, Indonesian Social Services Minister Bachtiar Chamsyah, in charge of the relief efforts in Meulaboh, expressed his country's gratitude to Singapore for its swift humanitarian aid.

He said: 'When I got word that this ship had anchored off the shores of Meulaboh, I informed Cabinet Secretary Sudi Silalahi who, in turn, informed President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
'The President was delighted.'

RSS Endurance, a helicopter landing ship, arrived on Jan 2 with 470 personnel and heavy equipment such as bulldozers, mechanical shovels and forklifts, which are vital in paving the way for relief supplies to reach remote areas in this town of 40,000, which has lost about 5,000 people.

The establishment of the landing site was important as the undersea earthquake had moved the coastline of northern Sumatra, which was closest to the quake's epicentre.

The SAF said in a statement yesterday: 'The heavy equipment is urgently needed to clear roads, and possibly prepare landing strips for aircraft.'

Mr Bachtiar, who visited the Endurance yesterday, said the heavy equipment was vital 'because our transport facilities have been destroyed'.

'We can't bring equipment from Medan or Banda Aceh because road links to this town have been cut off,' he said, referring to Sumatra's two main cities that bore the brunt of the disaster, which has killed an estimated 100,000 in Indonesia.

Also, only one concrete jetty can be used at Meulaboh. But this landing spot cannot accommodate heavy vehicles as it is broken in places and structurally unsound.

Further in, desolation and despair were palpable. The town was a shamble of wrecked wooden huts, with scores of bridges downed and fishing boats tossed 6km inland.

The smell of death still hangs over the city's streets. In the market district, people stepped over the dead to pick pots, pans and clothes from destroyed houses.

Some places have been flattened, with just foundations of homes and businesses left standing and an occasional mosque

Some of the devastated spots can be reached only by helicopter.

Bachtiar was grateful for the two Chinook helicopters and two Super Pumas that Singapore had provided. He had flown into Meulaboh from Medan on board one of the Chinooks, which also carried 10 generators that will bring electricity to some of the 70 refugee camps.

With him on the trip were Singapore's Ambassador to Indonesia Edward Lee; North Sumatra Governor Tengku Rizal Nurdin, and other officials.

Mr Bachtiar was briefed by the commander leading Singapore's relief effort in Indonesia, Colonel Tan Chuan-Jin, on board the vessel, which arrived in Meulaboh on Sunday from Singapore with 470 personnel from the SAF, Singapore Civil Defence Force and volunteer doctors and nurses.

Speaking in Bahasa Indonesia, Col Tan said in the past five days, a Hercules C-130 transport plane had been ferrying supplies to Medan.


In Banda Aceh, a medical team is working with the city's medical personnel to treat injured survivors while two Super Puma helicopters ferry food.

These were being accomplished under the first two phases of the relief effort. The third phase involves the Endurance, whose deck had been crowded with 51 trucks, trailers and other heavy equipment. They are being moved ashore swiftly to make way for the Super Pumas to land on the warship to pick up supplies for isolated villages.

Col Tan said more equipment will be brought in when the need arises. He also said the SAF's Joint Humanitarian Assistance Task Force, from the army, navy and the air force, was keen to work with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Medan and Meulaboh.

'We understand that some of the relief workers from the NGOs may have language problems. We have liaison officers with the language skills to help them,' he added.

Earlier, on board the Endurance, the miliary faced one of its biggest challenges when it found that the coastline of north-west Sumatra had moved, some parts by as much as several hundred metres.

Said the SAF in its statement later: 'The entire shoreline of Meulaboh had changed drastically due to the tsunami and severe flooding.'

The difference became obvious soon after the divers from SAF's Naval Diving Unit scouted murky waters along the Meulaboh coastline for suitable spots for the ship's landing craft. Some of the spots they marked out with buoys were nowhere to be seen on the charts.

Manoeuvring the warship is also tricky. Lieutenant-Colonel Li Lit Siew, the warship's commanding officer, had to balance his desire to bring the ship close to shore with the need to ensure the Endurance does not venture far from deeper water.

He said: 'We want to be close to the 200m depth. According to recommendations from seismic experts, being at this depth minimises impact to the ship should a tsunami occur.'

A small team on board is on 'tsunami watch' in case aftershocks trigger more tidal surges. If so, the warship will head towards deeper water where it is safe.

This was the magnitude of the task facing the Endurance.

But once the safe routes were identified, a pair of landing craft, propelled by water jets, took the bulldozers ashore for SAF's combat engineers to clear a path inland.

Also, 45 combat engineers from the Endurance went ashore to clear the beach of obstacles and sea junk. Said Col Tan: 'One of the challenges is the lack of landing points and the danger from submerged obstacles and debris, which prevents us from projecting our assets ashore.'

Most of the work to build the landing points were done by hand because the earth-moving equipment, such as bulldozers and excavators, could not be taken ashore.

Combat engineers filled 700 sandbags to build the landing sites, and by late afternoon one landing point was ready to take a bulldozer to help the soldiers cut a path further inland.
The significance of the event was not lost on Mr Bachtiar.

Seeing the number of vehicles and the 350 pallets and crates filled with relief on board the Endurance, he said: 'Our navy doesn't have the equipment you have on your ships. But the equipment from Singapore is good equipment. It will help us solve the disaster in Meulaboh.'

World raises $3b for tsunami-hit countries

NEW YORK - THE world has shown unprecedented compassion and raised nearly US$2 billion (S$3.2 billion) for the countries hit by Sunday's tsunamis, the UN emergency relief coordinator said yesterday, but said logistical bottlenecks are a nightmare. The amount, which includes contributions from 40 countries and the World Bank, is larger than what was pledged in all of the other humanitarian emergencies worldwide in 2004, Mr Jan Egeland said at a press conference.

'It is the biggest outpouring of relief ever in such a short time,' he said. 'The international compassion has never ever been like this.'

Just five days ago, the UN official who is directing the day-to-day operation of what is believed to be the largest international relief effort in history had criticised the relief effort as 'stingy'.
The money pooled was enough for the relief workers to feed, clothe, and provide emergency medical services to 'the clear majority' of those affected for the next few months, he said.
His comments came as Japan said it would increase its funding pledge to US$500 million from US$30 million, making it the single largest contributor in the relief efforts.

On Friday, the United States raised its contribution from US$35 million to US$350 million and Mr Egeland noted that it was doing a 'phenomenal job'.

Still, he said 'much more is needed' in providing health care and water for the long term as well as for the massive rebuilding efforts ahead.

'We will need to feed over one million people in Indonesia alone,' he noted.

He said he could not say exactly how long those affected would need the supplies but that it would be for months and not weeks.

Rattling off a list of the kind of relief equipment and supplies that were needed, he mentioned, in particular, helicopters, cargo planes, boats, trucks and fuel transportation and storage equipment.

'Military assets are as valuable as cash or gold because they let us get there in the race against the clock,' he said.

The wish list for relief was unlike others in previous humanitarian appeals because roads and airstrips had been so badly damaged in so many areas, he said.

Food and medical relief had begun arriving.

But obstacles - including a lack of coordination, fuel shortages, rough weather, airport logjams and impassable roads - prevented the distribution of aid to some of the most devastated areas in the 11 affected Asian and African nations.

Another senior United Nations relief official said the level of destruction in Indonesia's Aceh province and security concerns in an area of political conflict have combined to slow aid deliveries to survivors of the earthquake and tsunami disaster there.

'We haven't even got basic warehouse facilities remaining because of the level of damage,' said Dr David Nabarro, head of crisis operations at the World Health Organisation.

'The issues are logistic. This is what we expected. It will be some days before we can deal with that.'

Mr Nabarro said a further toll of 50,000 from disease and other causes would be in line with that seen in previous humanitarian emergencies. -- AP, AFP

Asian Tsunami Kills 12,600, Many More Homeless

By Chamintha Thilakarathna, Reuters 26 Dec. 04
Soldiers searched for bodies in treetops, families wept over the dead lined up on beaches and rescuers scoured coral isles for missing tourists as Asia counted the cost on Monday of a tsunami that killed at least 12,600. Idyllic palm-fringed beaches across southern Asia were transformed into scenes of death and devastation by the waves unleashed by the world's biggest earthquake in 40 years that struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra early on Sunday. "Death came from the sea," Satya Kumari, a construction worker living on the outskirts of the former French enclave of Pondicherry, India, told Reuters. "The waves just kept chasing us. It swept away all our huts. What did we do to deserve this?" The wall of water up to 30 feet tall flattened houses, hurled fishing boats onto coastal roads, sent cars spinning through swirling waters into hotel lobbies and sucked sunbathers and fishermen off beaches and out to sea. "We are not well equipped to deal with a disaster of this magnitude because we have never known a disaster like this," Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who declared a national disaster and appealed for donor aid, said from holiday in Britain. It was the worst natural disaster to hit Sri Lanka in recorded history. Officials placed the death toll at 4,500 and said that figure could rise substantially as troops recovered bodies dragged out to sea or smashed on golden beaches. Indonesian soldiers searched for bodies in tree tops and in the wreckage of homes smashed by the tsunami, triggered by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of northern Sumatra island killing at least 4,448 people there. Many of the dead were children and elderly who drowned in waters churning with huge rocks, logs and the remains of homes. "It smells so bad, fishy. The human bodies are mixed in with dead animals like dogs, fish, cats and goats," said marine colonel Buyung Lelana, head of an evacuation team in Lhokseumawe in Sumatra's Aceh province. "There are still a lot of bodies under the wreckage of collapsed houses and in rivers and swamps that we have not yet evacuated. Most of them are children and their mothers," he said.

International aid agencies rushed staff, equipment and money to the region, warning that bodies rotting in the water were already beginning to threaten the water supply for survivors. The Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was seeking 7.5 million Swiss francs ($6.5 million) for emergency aid funding.

"Many of the dead bodies were found in houses. Their heads were cracked, probably battered by rocks," said Mustofa, mayor of Bireuen regency on the north coast of Sumatra. Hundreds of thousands left homeless in Sri Lanka and fearing another devastating wave sheltered in temples and schools. In the seaside town of Kalutara, holidaymakers staying at a seafront luxury hotel described a 8-foot wall of water crashing onto the coast. "We were sitting by the water when people started shouting a wave was coming in," said visiting British car salesman Richard Freeman. "We left everything behind and ran inside." The southern coastal town of Galle, a major industrial hub famed for its historic fort, was submerged by a 30-foot wave. Frightened residents spent the night on roofs. Officials said more than 500,000 people were left homeless. On India's southeast coast, thousands of villagers huddled inside emergency shelters, too scared to sleep in case of another tsunami. Up to 3,300 people have been reported dead in the area. "I could see dead bodies all around and the devastation is of colossal proportions," Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa said after touring the worst hit areas of her state. Rows and rows of dead bodies were lined up on the floor inside hospitals, in corridors and in the grounds of government buildings. Distraught mothers checked the bodies of young boys and girls looking for their missing children. "I have been waiting for my husband and brother since yesterday," wept 38-year-old Narasamma as she stood on a beach near Mypadu, a fishing hamlet 375 miles south of Hyderabad, capital of southern Andhra Pradesh state. I am not sure they will come back as I can see wrecked boats floating in the water," she said. On the horizon, the wreckage of wooden fishing boats dotted the sea.

The tourist islands and beaches of southern Thailand were directly in the path of the wave that had killed up to 400. On the main Patong tourist beach in Phuket, plastic chairs lay scattered, hotels and restaurants were wrecked and small speed boats had been rammed into buildings. "I was sitting on the first floor of a bar, not far from the beach, watching cricket," said Australian tourist, Stephen Dicks, 42. "And suddenly all these people came screaming from the beach. "I looked around and saw a massive wall of water rushing down the street. It completely wiped out the ground floor of my bar ... It happened very fast, in a matter of minutes." In Los Angeles, the head of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said U.S. officials who detected the undersea quake tried frantically to get a warning out about the tsunami. But there was no official alert system in the region, said Charles McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's center in Honolulu. "It took an hour and a half for the wave to get from the earthquake to Sri Lanka and an hour for it to get ... to the west coast of Thailand and Malaysia," he said. "We tried to do what we could. We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world," he said.

The earthquake was the world's biggest since 1964 and the fourth-largest since 1900. The tsunami was so powerful it smashed boats and flooded areas along the east African coast, 3,728 miles away. In the Maldives, where thousands of foreign visitors were holidaying in the beach paradise, damage appeared to be limited. With communications cut to remote areas, it was impossible to assess the full scale of the disaster, aid agencies said. The Indian air force was trying to reach the remote Nicobar and Andaman archipelagos near the heart of the quake. The United States said it would offer "all appropriate assistance." The European Union pledged 3 million euros ($4 million). A tsunami, a Japanese word that translates as "harbor wave," is usually caused by a sudden rise or fall of part of the earth's crust under or near the ocean. It is not a single wave, but a series of waves that can travel across the ocean at speeds of more than 500 miles an hour. As the tsunami enters the shallows of coastlines in its path, its velocity slows but its height increases. A tsunami that is just a few centimeters or meters high from trough to crest can rear up to heights of 30 to 50 meters as it hits the shore, striking with devastating force