>> CHARITY CHAOS
By ANDY SOLTIS
January 1, 2005 -- Relief workers rushing half a billion dollars of aid to the tsunami zone are struggling with massive logjams, lack of coordination and critical shortages that are blocking relief to those who need it most.
The logistical nightmare was most evident in Indonesia, where tons of food and medical supplies have arrived on giant cargo planes, but remain stacked up at Banda Aceh's airport because of severe gas shortages.
At another airport in Medan, nearly 300 miles to the south, thousands of boxes filled with drinking water, blankets and other key supplies are piled high in a hangar, some of it untouched since it arrived Monday.
"Tell the world we need more fuel," Zezi Afrizal, a food vendor, said at a gas station in Banda Aceh, where cars were backed up for half a mile.
Relief workers say they're facing an uphill battle.
"We are trying to put together some coordination mapping. There are challenges, there are difficulties," said Vinod Chandra Menon, chief of emergency at UNICEF's India unit.
Some relief workers warned that duplication of efforts would undermine the world's outpouring of charity.
"There is a risk of chaos in the aid response in Indonesia," said Ashvin Dayal, East Asian regional director of the charity Oxfam.
The problems were similar all over South Asia.
In India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, huge stacks of clothing piled up on roadsides.
"Who needs a mountain of clothes?" said Thankammal, a widow in her 60s, who said she had no use for a stack of nightgowns that lay unwanted.
But further down the Tamil Nadu coast, residents said the first relief supplies arrived only yesterday, because reaching the area had become risky after a key bridge was damaged.
"They [other rescue workers] seemed scared or not interested," one aid-agency worker told Reuters.
Massive airlifts were in full gear yesterday, but the glut of planes meant a shortage of places to land in some of the worst-hit areas.
"We are already witnessing a logjam at key airfields," said Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill.
Aid is finally reaching India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, but only in small amounts because the roads were washed away.
"We have sent ships toward the affected islands, but actually landing on them and going inland is a real challenge," said Indian Lt. Gen. B.S. Thakur.
Two U.S. Navy battle groups are headed for the Indonesia and Sri Lanka coasts with supplies, but their most important cargo is more than 40 helicopters to ferry the aid inland.
"The situation is grim," said Anjali Kwatra, leader of Sri Lanka's Christian Aid emergency-assessment team. "Many villages have not yet received aid. Many areas are inaccessible."
Gov. Pataki announced yesterday that helicopters will be the main cargo on a state Air National Guard aircraft being deployed to help the relief effort.
The C-6 Galaxy aircraft will pick up the helicopters in Okinawa, Japan, and transport them to Thailand to convoy supplies, state officials said.
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the emergency effort was getting better in hard-hit Banda Aceh, but said distributing relief was complicated by a lack of truck drivers.
"Drivers, the same as government officials, are taking care of their families. There are no drivers at all," he told reporters.
Relief efforts in Sri Lanka were further snarled by torrential rain yesterday that cut off the few roads that survived the tsunami.
But still the supplies pour into the ravaged area.
The Thai air force said it could no longer handle the flood of donations.
"Our three warehouses are fully occupied with more than enough canned food, bottled water and used clothes," Captain Pongsak Semachai said.
With Post Wire Services
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