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GUNUNG SITOLI, Indonesia, Mar 31 (AFP): Tonnes of aid was headed to Indonesia's Nias island Thursday but severe damage to roads and the airport was complicating efforts to help thousands of people affected by this week's quake, relief workers said.
Water supplies were running low in the island's main town of Gunung Sitoli, where about 500 people were killed, and authorities were desperate for equipment to aid the search for any survivors 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 in Nias.
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.
"The urban water systems needs electricity... rural systems have alternate means to access water, such as boreholes," she said.
Two UN water purification plants, each capable of helping 20,000 people, were expected on the island later Thursday, UN Development Programme spokeswoman Imogen Wall said.
About 300 tonnes of World Food Programme aid was also due to arrive Thursday by ship, Wall said.
Relief agencies had to use helicopters to ferry aid such as food, medical supplies and tents to Nias from mainland Indonesia because the airport landing surface was too badly damaged by the quake to receive large aircraft, she said.
"We don't have a choice because the airport in Nias is so badly damaged that nothing bigger than a 15-20 seater fixed wing plane can land there."
The United States had meanwhile despatched a 1,000-bed hospital ship, which was expected to arrive off the coast of Nias in six days, according to US embassy spokesman Max Kwak.
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.
Australia sent two military transport planes carrying emergency supplies and 60 medical personnel, and a navy supply ship with a field hospital aboard was expected to arrive Saturday.
There was still no clear idea of the situation in remote parts of Nias, where the quake had left many roads impassable to four-wheeled vehicles, Wall said.
Assessment teams had fanned out on motorbikes Thursday to reach these areas and gauge the number of dead and homeless, she said.
While relief agencies did not know how many people had been left homeless on Nias, they estimated that 12,000 people needed shelter on the neighbouring island of Simeulue, Wall said.
The island, where 15 people were confirmed dead, had survived the quake better than Nias because it had fewer buildings made from concrete.
Relief groups still in Simeulue after the Boxing Day tsunami had already distributed some 200 tonnes of food aid, Wall said.
She admitted there had been some difficulties in carrying out relief operations but said the response had been fairly swift.
Meanwhile, an Indonesian scientist warned Wednesday that an earthquake measuring as high as 9.0 on the Richter scale could hit regions off Sumatra and trigger another tsunami.
"Every earthquake adds seismic pressure in nearby areas," Murti Matoyo of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences was quoted by the state Antara news agency as saying.
"The potential for an earthquake in the west of Sumatra has increased due to the recent quake," he said.
Hundreds were killed when an 8.7-magnitude earthquake struck off the west coast of Sumatra late Monday. Most of the victims were on the islands of Nias and Simeulue.
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