UN warns many more dead in Indonesia

Local and foreign volunteers carry new bodies that arrive at the Yan Yaw buddhist temple in Takua Pa, Phang Nga province yesterday. The temple is being utilized as morgue for the hundreds of bodies, where foreign and local experts perform DNA test to identify the dead recovered around the southern Thailand province devastated by tsunami. PHOTO: AFP

Even as hundreds of workers backed by helicopters descended on Aceh province on Sumatra island, the area worst-hit, the UN's aid coordination chief said the full horror of the death and ruin had yet to be realised.

The flow of emergency supplies suffered a setback when an accident involving a Boeing 737 cargo plane and a buffalo blocked the runway at the main city of Banda Aceh, delaying flights to the hub of the relief operation.

Seven aircraft, ferrying 35 medical officers, volunteers and medical supplies from Jakarta were stranded in the capital by the accident, but helicopters in Aceh were able to continue to airlift stockpiled aid.

In Jakarta, key representatives of major world organisations and foreign governments were beginning to arrive to see some of the devastation and to prepare for a summit on recovering from and preventing a repeat of the tragedy.

Although Indonesia's confirmed toll has remained steady at around 94,000, senior United Nations officials warned that it could drastically increase as a clearer picture emerges from isolated towns on Aceh's directly hit west coast.

UN emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland said the fatality figure in the main western town of Meulaboh could account for more than half of its 50,000 residents, meaning Indonesia's toll could "grow exponentially".

"We have not yet, I think, fully grasped that this was the epicentre of the catastrophe. Many of these villages are gone. There is no trace left," he said, adding that relief had yet to reach many west coast areas.

Such was the extent of the damage in Meulaboh and other smaller towns on the west coast that the Indonesian government was considering abandoning attempts to rebuild, instead relocating them farther away from the sea.

More than 50 foreign aid agencies were trying to reach remote areas from Banda Aceh backed by military personnel from countries including Australia, the United States, Malaysia, New Zealand and the Philippines.