U.S. military copters
ferrying supplies
to Aceh

Helicopters assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln yesterday began moving people and supplies to Aceh, Indonesia, the scene of the largest number of victims from Sunday's earthquakes and tsunamis.

Capt. Roger Welch, the Pacific Command's operations director, said the Lincoln strike group, with its five warships and 6,000 sailors and Marines, is in the Strait of Malacca to provide relief to Indonesia.

Indonesia is "the most impacted area," Welch said at a Camp Smith news conference yesterday. "It will require the most assets."

Pacific Command, whose area of responsibility includes the Indian Ocean, is coordinating the military's relief effort.

Welch said the helicopters will be used to ferry supplies and then will medevac people to hospitals and aid stations. All flights must be made in daylight because there is no radar coverage.

As of yesterday, Welch said, the U.S. military now has 350 people on the ground in disaster areas, and 9,000 more in the Lincoln strike group and the Bonhomme Richard expeditionary strike group.

Ten Air Force C-130 cargo planes are flying supplies "into the hardest-hit areas in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka," Welch said. "The supplies specifically are focusing first on water, shelter, food and medicine."

He said Canada has joined the coalition group of nations providing aid, joining the United States, Japan, Australia and India. "The force is growing and the coalition is growing."

He said there are no estimates on what the U.S. military relief will cost.

Three disaster-relief assessment teams are now in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand.

Hurdles mount
in aid efforts

Destroyed roads and lack of
manpower and fuel limit access
to hardest-hit areas

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia » Military planes and helicopters shuttled aid to the tsunami-battered coasts of Indonesia and other nations today, while officials acknowledged that more manpower is needed to deliver supplies to the hardest-hit areas.

Washed-out roads, collapsed bridges and lack of fuel compounded the challenge of distributing a global outpouring of aid to the neediest victims of Asia's quake-and- tsunami disaster.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono flew to the worst-hit areas of Sumatra, the island that faced the quake's epicenter, to inspect relief efforts. He spoke to aid workers and troops in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh before boarding a helicopter for the demolished remote coastal village of Meulaboh.

"The scale of the disaster is just too big," said presidential spokesman Andi Mallarengen. "We can bring in the aid, food, but we need manpower to distribute them."

Six days after the earthquake and tsunamis that ravaged 3,000 miles of Asian and African coastline, the confirmed death toll neared 123,000, and 5 million people were homeless.

Having pledged $350 million yesterday to help tsunami victims, the Bush administration is focusing on the logistics of getting clean water, food and other supplies to the region.

"The disaster around the Indian Ocean continues to grow both in size and scope," President Bush said yesterday in announcing that the United States would provide 10 times its earlier $35 million offering -- an amount criticized as miserly for such a rich nation.

The dollar amount of U.S. assistance could rise as the impact of the tragedy is realized, Bush said in a statement released at his Texas ranch.

In New York yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell also said more U.S. aid could be forthcoming.

To help coordinate the relief effort, the United States set up a support center in Thailand. More than 20 patrol and cargo aircraft have been dispatched to carry supplies, Bush said. The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, the Maritime Pre-Positioning Squadron from Guam and an amphibious ship carrying a Marine Expeditionary Unit soon will be in position to generate clean water and support other efforts.

An American military cargo jet yesterday brought blankets, medicine and the first of 80,000 body bags to Banda Aceh. Nine U.S military C-130 transports took off yesterday from Utapao in Thailand to ferry supplies to southern parts of Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, Maj. Larry Redmon said in Bangkok.

Tomorrow, Powell and the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has experience with extensive hurricane damage, are leading a delegation of experts to the region to get firsthand assessments of the damage.

Heavy rain today on Sumatra drenched boxes of aid piled up at Banda Aceh's airport, making it difficult for workers loading the cartons of water, crackers and noodles onto delivery vehicles. The downpour was also likely to concern health workers, who have warned that heavy rain could help spread diseases.

In the hardest-hit country, Indonesia, the official death toll stood at about 80,000, but officials acknowledged the final number might never be known because the towering tsunami waves swept entire villages out to sea.

Sri Lanka reported about 28,500 deaths, India more than 7,700 and Thailand almost 5,000, with another 6,541 still listed as missing. A total of more than 300 were killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya.