Dead Could Number 80,000 in Indonesia Alone

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — A United Nations official estimated today that Indonesia’s death toll from the earthquake and tsunami could reach 80,000 once authorities can account for casualties in devastated areas cut off from assistance.

Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla put the death toll today at 32,000. Indonesia would be the biggest casualty of the massive undersea earthquake and tidal wave Sunday that claimed lives from India to Thailand.

International aid and foreign doctors began trickling into the hard-hit province of Aceh as the first two Australian military cargo planes landed in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital. However, little food or medical assistance appeared to be reaching camps where thousands of survivors have taken refuge.

The government accelerated efforts to collect rotting corpses from the debris-strewn streets of Banda Aceh, dispatching 40 trucks to pick up bodies. But authorities said the cleanup effort was plagued by fuel shortages and the unwillingness of residents to help collect bodies for fear of finding family members.

For the fourth day, bodies lay by the side of major roads and in neighborhoods destroyed by the tidal wave. In places, the stench was overwhelming.

At the main military hospital in the center of town, surgeons amputated the legs of two injured survivors who contracted gangrene. Health officials expressed concern that other injured people unable to get care may also contract the fast-moving infection.

Michael Elmquist, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Indonesia, predicted that the death toll in Indonesia could reach 50,000 to 80,000 based on experience in other earthquakes.

“I would say we are probably talking about somewhere on the order of 80,000 people, 50,000 to 80,000 people,” Elmquist said, calling his estimate “an educated guess.”

The devastation in Indonesia was higher than in other countries, he said, because it was hit by both the quake and the tidal wave.

Aceh, Sumatra’s northernmost province, is the closest major land area to the epicenter of the quake, a magnitude 9.0. The quake and aftershocks caused major damage in Banda Aceh, destroying a shopping mall, apartment buildings and numerous other structures.

“The other countries were hit by the tidal wave, but here in Aceh we have a combination earthquake and tidal wave,” Elmquist said. “If you have a tidal wave come in after an earthquake, there is no sense in looking for survivors in collapsed buildings.”

Elmquist said that as many as 40,000 people may have died in Meulaboh, a city of about 100,000 people on Sumatra’s west coast south of Banda Aceh. Elmquist said he based his estimate on a report from an Indonesian official who flew over the city and assessed the damage from the air.

Authorities said the quake and tidal wave destroyed bridges on the highway leading to Meulaboh and that the area remains inaccessible by land.

The U.N. plans to raise and spend $24 million in initial relief efforts in the next few months, he said. So far, donors have pledged only about $10 million. Even so, Elmquist said, “This is going to be the biggest coordinated international aid effort ever.”

Aceh has been under strict military control for 18 months as the army battles separatist rebels. Few outsiders have been allowed into the province, but that is changing. Dozens of foreign journalists have raced to the region. Medical teams from Singapore, Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan also have arrived.

Although President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has appealed for help from other countries and personally welcomed the journalists to Aceh, some in the military are still reluctant to throw open the gates.

When the first Australian flight landed in Banda Aceh, Australian Group Captain John Oddie was greeted by Gen. Bambang Darmono, who is scheduled to take command of the airport this week. The Australians plan five relief flights a day.

In an unusual exchange, Oddie offered to bring in a heavy forklift and a terminal services crew to unload the aid planes as well as Indonesian aircraft arriving at the military airport. The Australian also offered to bring in a medical team Thursday.

Bambang said he would consider the proposal but did not have the authority to accept the offer.

“Come back tomorrow,” he said.

At the airport, hundreds of boxes of rice, noodles and bottled water were piled up, waiting to go to refugee camps, but no distribution system had been set up. The officer in charge said he gives supplies to the camps that send a truck and ask for them.

At a camp set up on the grounds of television station TVRI, about 2,000 refugees were subsisting on the small amounts of food they were able to take from their homes and a meager supply of rice handed out by the Indonesian Red Cross. Student volunteers dispensed aspirin or amoxicillin to refugees who complained of illness. The camp had no latrines.

A mile up the road at Mata Ie camp set up by the Indonesian military, dozens of injured refugees lay on cots in the medical tent, but there was no doctor to see them.

Mahmud Bakhtiar, 25, who lost 16 relatives, including his father and seven brothers, suffered a broken arm when he was caught by the tidal wave. Four days later, he had not been treated by a doctor.

“I asked for one, but they promised nothing,” he said. “I have no idea where to go. I feel very sad. All my family, all my cousins, my nephews are dead. My arm hurts.”

The smell of death hung over the military hospital, where workers started burying more than 500 bodies. Dozens of patients lay on cots and wooden benches in the corridors and the lobby. Bloody bandages lay on the dirty floor. Several patients moaned for help.

Over the last two days, dozens of doctors have arrived from other parts of Indonesia and from abroad to staff the facility.

The hospital’s biggest problem is a shortage of fuel, said Aryono Pusponegoro, a doctor from Jakarta who has become the hospital’s temporary administrator.

Another shortage has been caused by the need to bury each body in a shroud, according to Muslim tradition. “That’s why we don’t have any more sheets in this hospital,” the doctor said.