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Bad weather hampers quake relief effort

Survivors go hungry, death toll lower than thought

AFP, Gunung Sitoli
Bad weather and infrastructure damage hampered relief efforts in quake-hit northwestern Indonesia yesterday, relief agencies said, as survivors in remote areas were reportedly going hungry.
Water supplies were running low in Nias island's main town of Gunung Sitoli, where the UN estimated about 500 people were killed in Monday's quake, and authorities were desperate for equipment to aid the search for anyone trapped under the rubble.
"The island of Nias still badly needs heavy equipment such as backhoes, bulldozers and trucks. Electricity is still not available to all parts of the city," said the island's district chief Binahati Baeha.
Armed forces chief Sutarto said heavy-lifting equipment had been sent to the area but there were problems in getting it ashore.
"At the moment there are already four excavators on board our navy ship but we're still trying to find a way
to bring them onto land," he told reporters.
The power cut had disabled the town's electrical water purification system and the shortage of water was becoming severe, relief officials said.
"Water purification is emerging as a major need," said a coordinator for UN aid operations, Michele Lipner.
A water purification system from Oxfam arrived in Gunung Sitoli Thursday and the town's own system was being repaired, UN Development Programme spokeswoman Imogen Wall said.
Relief agencies had to use helicopters to ferry aid to Nias from mainland Indonesia because the airport landing surface was too badly damaged by the quake to receive large aircraft, she said.
"We have had three helicopters going to Nias," she said from the Aceh provincial capital Banda Aceh. "They've taken basically about 1,500 kilogrammes (3,300 pounds) of communications and medical
equipment."
Helicopters also ferried aid from Medan on Sumatra, she said.
However, attempts by relief agency CARE to deliver aid by boat to the island of Simeulue, where 15 people had been confirmed dead and 12,000 were without shelter, had been scuppered by stormy weather, Wall said.
"We have been quite badly hampered today by bad weather. Two boats have had to turn back from Simeleue because of high seas," she said.
The United States had meanwhile dispatched a 1,000-bed hospital ship which was expected to arrive off Nias in six days, US embassy spokesman Max Kwak said.
The USNS Mercy was deployed to Indonesia in late January to help in the aftermath of the December 26 tsunami disaster, which killed hundreds of thousands of people in the same area as Monday's quake.