First aid arrives in Indonesia as death toll continues to rise

Associated Press

BANTUL, Indonesia – Emergency aid began arriving Monday in areas devastated by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake in Indonesia, but officials said supplies were not being delivered fast enough to victims who begged for help on roads lined with crumpled buildings.

The government’s Social Affairs Ministry raised the official death toll by about 800 to 5,137, saying it included previously uncounted bodies buried in mass graves immediately after the quake.

The first aid plane chartered by the U.N. children’s agency arrived in the city of Solo, about three hours from the hardest-hit district of Bantul on Java island. It was loaded with water, tents, stoves and cooking gear.

On Sunday, three U.N. trucks brought high-energy biscuits to survivors and two Singapore military cargo planes arrived at Yogyakarta airport with doctors and medical supplies.

But officials said relief supplies remained inadequate.

“We have received food and medicine from the government but it’s not enough,” said Suparno, a neighborhood official in Bantul who goes by one name, like many Indonesians. “How can I distribute 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of rice to 1,200 people?”

Hundreds of villagers lined main roads in the disaster zone, holding out donation boxes. They explained that any money collected would be used communally to buy rice, oil and candles.

“We need help. Anything at all,” one sign read.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono acknowledged a “lack of coordination” in aid distribution when he visited refugees Monday and called for government officials to be “more agile.”

“I saw in many areas that there are many things that need to be speeded up,” he said.

Yudhoyono-criticized by some as being hesitant to act in the past-spent the first night after Saturday’s quake sleeping in a tent along with survivors and moved his office to the nearby city of Yogyakarta to supervise relief operations.

The government said the quake left an estimated 200,000 people homeless, most of whom are now living in shacks close to their former homes or in shelters erected in rice fields. Hospitals overflowed with bloodied survivors.

The quake has intensified activity at the nearby Mount Merapi volcano, which spit out lava and hot clouds Monday, sending debris avalanching two-and-a-half miles down the mountain, said Subandriyo, chief of the Merapi volcanology and monitoring office.

The United States has allocated $2.5 million for assistance to victims.