The U.N.-led effort to aid tsunami victims is zeroing in on northwestern Sumatra, where up
to a million people are still unaccounted
for. Officials say they have only a sketchy picture of the scope of the
devastation.
12 days after the tsunami struck, U.N. officials say they still do not
know the fate of hundreds of thousands of coastal villagers in
northwestern Sumatra.
Briefing reporters Thursday, emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland
admitted that the massive global aid community is, in his words, "not even
close" to having figures of how many people died, how many are missing,
and how many more may be living in improvised camps in Aceh, which bore
the brunt of the tsunami's force.
"Hundreds of villages were razed, the people moved from the coast to
inland. Along the coast, very few people remain, in the devastation, very
few remain because so many were swept away, and the rest have fled towards
where there is water, and there is water inland in forest and hills. There
may be 200 improvised camps, and there could be hundreds of thousands
people there. I've tried to get a definite figure of how many people lived
on that coast, and it's hard to get, but it could be a million."
The U.N. relief official expressed fear that his widely used earlier
estimate of 150,000 dead from the tsunami could be far too low.
"It will be much bigger. When will anybody want to give that figure? I
don't know, I don't think we will be prepared to give a new figure before
some time, because it will very much depend on how we can reach the
communities on Aceh Sumatra coast that are inland, and start to interview
them, but if 20 percent or 30 percent or more of the population was swept
away and killed, there are hundreds of thousands of people on the
coastline. We could have very, very large figures, we don't know how big."
Mr. Egeland noted the announcement in Jakarta that the core group of
aid donors led by the United States has been dissolved and integrated into
the U.N.-led aid effort. But he said the core group would continue to
provide the bulk of the aid delivery capability.
"We will still keep very close contact with those core group members
because they're giving us some of the biggest assistance and have some of
the biggest assets on the ground," he said. "Like the U.S., their military
assets are the most important assets for big parts of our operation along
the Aceh coast now."
Mr. Egeland said that except for Sumatra, aid workers will soon be able
to provide blankets, tents, water, food and sanitation to almost all
survivors in tsunami-hit areas. He admitted, however, that little can be
done to heal the mental scars of those who have lost children, spouses,
schools and livelihoods. In that respect, he said, we are not even
close. |