UN: With promises of aid in the tsunami disaster touching €1.5 billion, relief workers were focusing yesterday on how to get help to those who most need it.
About 1.8 million survivors, mainly in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, are in need of food, the United Nations said. Help is likely to reach those in Sri Lanka within three days but an estimated one million Indonesians may have to wait much longer, officials warned.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is expected to arrive in Indonesia on Thursday to co-ordinate efforts at an international donors' conference which the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and the Japanese and Australian prime ministers will also attend.
Although bickering over the leadership of relief operations has subsided a little, with UN officials now praising the Americans for their help, Mr Annan disclosed yesterday that he had not spoken to President George Bush since the disaster.
"I've spoken to other leaders around the world, including the Chinese, and they all want to accept the UN leadership and they want to work with us," he said in an interview with ABC television.
On Saturday, Mr Bush said in a radio broadcast that the US was "leading an international coalition" to help with relief and reconstruction.
In the space of a week the UN has received promises of money from more than 45 countries - as well as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the EU - which amount to more than the total pledged for all other humanitarian appeals in 2004 combined, Mr Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, told journalists.
"The compassion has never ever been like this," he said.
Japan heads the donor list with a promise of €368 million. The US has promised €258 million, the World Bank €185 million, Britain €70 million and Sweden €60 million.
Mr Egeland said that food and medicines that had begun arriving in large quantities were running into logistical problems such as overloaded airports. Practical help in overcoming these could be as important as money, he said.
"The military and civil defence assets that many countries are providing us are as valuable as cash or gold would be today because it makes us move with the assistance and it makes us get there in the race against the clock." The "very concrete assistance" that was needed included helicopter carriers for use off the coasts to prevent clogging of inland airstrips, and air traffic control units to make small, damaged airstrips usable in the relief effort.
France said yesterday that it would send the helicopter carrier Jeanne d'Arc and the frigate Georges Leygues to the area today. The warships would have medical teams, an operating theatre and five helicopters.
Germany is sending 100 soldiers to Indonesia to set up a centre which will treat injured survivors and provide vaccinations. American and Australian military helicopters are already at work in Sumatra delivering parcels of aid to the cut-off west coast.
"We are relying on the helicopter system because that is the only way we can reach the most remote areas," Mr Michael Elmquist, head of the UN relief operation in Indonesia, said.
"It is probably going to take a couple of weeks before a road network is restored so trucks can reach those areas. I can't exclude the possibility that there are places that will not receive assistance for a couple of weeks," he told Reuters.