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GENEVA, Jan 4 (AP): Logistical problems are hampering the unprecedented global effort to deliver aid to the millions of people suffering from tsunami damage around the Indian Ocean, particularly in Indonesia's Aceh province, the United Nations and Red Cross said. With an international tsunami relief budget of about US$2 billion (euro1.48 billion), the amount of aid and staff arriving in the vast region is causing bottlenecks, said Jamie McGoldrick, an official of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.
"I think that it could be simply down to the fact there's just too many people arriving in these places," McGoldrick told The Associated Press Monday McGoldrick said the United Nations, which has appealed for governments of tsunami-hit countries to remove all bureaucratic obstacles to aid deliveries, had received no reports of such problems.
But, he said, tsunami destruction of roads and ports was complicating the problem.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the Indonesian government has asked it to coordinate relief to Meulaboh, a hard-hit city.
But the Red Cross efforts are being slowed by transportation bottlenecks, said spokeswoman Sian Bowen.
"There have been some logistical challenges," Bowen said Monday. "Some of the areas are pretty inaccessible."
The Red Cross will likely rely on helicopters to deliver aid supplies to the worst affected areas of Aceh - which was hit hardest by the disaster - as many roads are still impassable and most communities lack runways for larger aircraft to land, Bowen explained.
OCHA said it also was having problems delivering aid to some areas because of a lack of available transport and storage facilities.
"We have to find storage capacities," said OCHA spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs. "We have to find trucks, and then we have to reach the people. We have to overcome all these logistical challenges. The United Nations also said it will hold a meeting of governments next week to discuss aid pledges to help victims of across the Indian Ocean.
The Geneva meeting on Jan. 11 likely will be chaired by U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland, said Byrs.
Governments and global organisations have already pledged US$2 billion (euro1.48 billion) in tsunami disaster relief, according to the United Nations. The global body's initial appeal will officially be launched Jan. 6 in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, by Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Meanwhile, report from Port Blair, India, says: Ships scoured the seas for thousands of bodies still missing in the tsunami-hit Andamans Tuesday as India refused offers of foreign aid for the ravaged islands amid a mounting clamour for relief among survivors.
The death toll in the Andaman and Nicabar isles was 832 while the number missing, most presumed dead, totalled 5,801 as another moderate earthquake shook the remote chain early Tuesdsay.
"We're grateful to governments which want to help but as of now we have the resources," junior home minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said in Port Blair, capital of the islands 1,200 kilometres southeast of the Indian mainland and home to military bases along with tribal populations.
The hunt for bodies off the archipelago which is home to 356,000 people came as India said relief was proceeding on a war-footing amid growing calls for help from many of the 38 inhabited islands.
"They're only talking big while we're starving. This shouldn't be made into some politics," said Manik Guin, a survivor from Hut Bay, one of the devastated islands, after being evacuated.
The stepped-up relief drive followed reports that a civilian administrator was seized by hungry survivors in the Nicobar Islands at the weekend. He was freed hours later after promising to provide more food.
Foreign aid agencies in Port Blair have expressed anger at the rejection of their offers of help for the islands, many of which are out of bounds to both mainland Indians and foreigners due to security concerns and a desire to protect endangered Stone Age tribes from outsiders.
Paramilitary troopers, soldiers and border guards also were brought in to scour dense mangroves for missing people and planes were evacuating survivors from ravaged islands to relief camps, officials said.
"Many ran away into the forests when the waves came but we've reason to believe some bodies may have floated into forests," a police official said.
"A rehabilitation wing will be created and the government has told the Andamanese administration to prepare an action-plan by January 15," he said.
India's director general of health services S.K. Agarwal, who arrived in Port Blair this week, said 40 specialists with drugs were working alongside local doctors on islands where the waves wiped out the health infrastructure.
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