Aid on the wing

Relief workers used everything from helicopters to elephants to reach survivors and shift the rubble of wrecked towns eight days after giant...

Relief workers used everything from helicopters to elephants to reach survivors and shift the rubble of wrecked towns eight days after giant waves struck Asia, triggering one of the biggest aid efforts in history.

Aid workers struggled to help thousands huddled in makeshift camps in Indonesia8217;s northern Sumatra where more than 90,000 the 145,000 killed across the region died, and to reach remote areas after roads and airstrips were washed away. US helicopters began shuttling injured refugees, many of them children, out of some of the worst hit parts of Aceh province, where many towns and villages were wiped from the map after the Dec. 26 quake and the tsunami waves it spawned.

8216;8216;All the villagers started coming out of the woodwork, telling us they needed help. They said there were a lot more wounded people further inland up in the mountains,8217;8217; Seahawk Pilot Lieutenant-Commander Joel Moss said from the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Pilots described columns of refugees trudging up the coast towards the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, while others were camped out above the high-water line. Across southern Asia logjams began to ease at airports bursting with hundreds of tonnes of emergency supplies but relief workers faced a logistical nightmare in distributing them.

8216;8216;It8217;s absolute chaos,8217;8217; said Titon Mitra of CARE International, which is running 14 survivor camps in Aceh.

The same bleak picture faced aid workers in Sri Lanka, the second worst-hit nation with more than 30,000 dead, said Margareta Wahlstrom, UN special envoy for tsunami relief.

The United Nations said 1.8 million survivors needed food in tsunami-hit areas but the world8217;s response in money and resources gave grounds for hope as dehydration, disease and hunger threatened to add to the death toll.

So far 2 billion has been pledged and more was coming. World Bank President James Wolfensohn said his agency could double or triple the 250 million it has promised for regional reconstruction, and would also be looking at debt relief for the poor nations worst affected.

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UNICEF said it had reports of children dying of pneumonia in Aceh. Many in refugee camps were sick from a variety of ailments and deep wounds. The UN agency estimates about 50,000 children died across the region 8212;8212; a third of the total death toll of 145,000. 8212;Reuters