BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Help finally came from the sky on Sunday for Indonesian villages in an area washed flat by the tsunami a week ago, but it grew clearer no amount of aid could stop more loss of life throughout the disaster zone.
Starving people besieged U.S. and Indonesian military helicopters carrying food and clean water as they managed to land for the first time along Sumatra's north-west coast. Over half the 129,817 known victims of the killer waves perished there.
It was a small start, but U.N. officials said it could be two more weeks before some stricken communities were reached, giving dehydration, disease and hunger time to add their own toll.
UNICEF said reports were coming in of children starting to die of pneumonia in the area, where Indonesia said so many people were dead in one city it would be abandoned as a ghost town.
In places near Banda Aceh, capital of north Sumatra's Aceh province, wild scenes meant aid deliveries had to be aborted.
"A few helicopters have tried to land in the coastal villages outside of Banda Aceh but mobs on the ground desperate for the supplies prevented them from landing," the U.N. World Food Programme said.
In Sri Lanka, which lost some 30,000 citizens, nature stayed cruel as torrential rains flooded refugee camps.
"We already lost our homes. We came here then the rains came and took away our bundles, everything we had left," said G.K. Sambasivam, 65, dozens of whose relatives are missing.
Fears also grew for people in uncontactable parts of India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands. Rescuers used small rubber and wooden boats to reach islands where roads are impassable.
The U.S. aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, now anchored off Indonesia's Sumatra island, significantly boosted aid operations.
"A major change has been the arrival of the American ship with helicopters which have been able to reach the west coast," said Michael Elmquist, head of U.N. disaster relief in Indonesia.
"The logistical situation is looking a lot better than it did a couple of days ago ... Things are improving slowly."
Captain Larry Burt, commander of a helicopter air wing on the Lincoln, said he had seen bodies 20 miles out to sea.
"You just cannot describe it," he said. "Above the water line there are people standing there waving flags trying to signal us. There are so many, you just can't stop for all of them."
His flights are part of the world's largest postwar aid operation, with $2 billion pledged so far, battling logistical nightmares to deliver aid to some 5 million people.
SOURCE: Reuters
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News - Tsunami aid reaches remote areas, too slow for some
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