Twenty-seven days after an earthquake and tidal waves that killed more than 166,320 Indonesians, the country still faces problems in distributing aid, identifying the dead and garnering sufficient funds for reconstruction, officials said.
"The biggest problem we are facing now is how to distribute aid to the victims in time," Didi Haryadi, an official from Indonesia's Foreign Ministry, told Xinhua.
According to the provincial government of Aceh, the region hardest hit by the tsunamis, or tidal waves, up to 370,000 victims are now staying in 64 camps, with poor living facilities.
As local governments in the affected areas have largely lost their functioning in the waves, and transportation has not been fully recovered, distributing aid materials remains difficult.
A joint assessment team of several international groups said Thursday in their report that most of the children in areas along the western coastline of Aceh haven't received measles vaccines, and many pregnant women there have no access to midwives.
After a week-long inspection to those areas, the team found that water purification equipment and doctors are still in shortage there.
With the death toll well above 166,320, identifying the dead and missing has proven to be another big problem for the Indonesian government.
In Aceh alone, official figures put the death toll at more than 100,000. In the provincial capital Banda Aceh, photos and notices looking for family members or relatives can be seen everywhere from government buildings to makeshift camps for the displaced people.
However, Cabinet Secretary Sudi Silalahi said the process of searching and burying bodies would be finished by Jan. 26, after which major efforts will be shifted to reconstruction.
As the date draws near, it has become increasingly pressing for the survivors to search their beloved ones.
On the tsunami caused losses, Jakarta on Wednesday put the figure at some 4.5 billion US dollars. The damage included 1.3 million homes and buildings destroyed, eight ports, 18 bridges and 92 percent of the sanitation systems in the affected areas.
Rebuilding the Aceh and North Sumatra provinces alone will need20 trillion rupiah (some 2.2 billion dollars) in the next five years, Indonesia's daily Kompas newspaper reported.
The international community has promised remarkable sums of aid, but as it takes time for the pledges to be realized, Indonesian officials said capital shortage will hinder reconstruction work.
As foreign troops are required to leave in March, Indonesia will have to rely more on itself to rebuild the country, heavily hit by the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunamis.
(Xinhua News Agency January 21, 2005)
