Nivell Rayda & Agencies, Padang, Indonesia – At least 413 people have now been confirmed killed in the tsunami that slammed into the Mentawai Islands in West Sumatra on Monday, as rescuers battle logistics and bad weather to locate the missing and evacuate survivors.
Fifty more bodies were located on the islands of North and South Pagai on Friday, bringing the official toll to 413, according to the Disaster Relief Operational Control Center. At least 298 people are still missing.
A Navy ship brought relief supplies to the town of Sikakap in North Pagai, on the unaffected northern tip of the island. From there the aid will have to be distributed to the worst-hit areas by boat or helicopter because of the lack of roads.
However, a shortage of aviation fuel and the lack of working phone lines are slowing the distribution of aid, officials say. Relief officials said helicopters began dropping aid packets on Friday. According to the officials, they had reached "around 20 to 30 percent" of the affected areas that could not be reached by land or sea.
"We've started sending relief supplies, which are still limited but enough for the people to survive on," said Gagah Prakoso, a spokesman for the national search and rescue agency.
Some aid workers have reported being stuck in Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, for days as they wait for a ride to the Mentawai Islands.
Zulhendri, a coordinator at the West Sumatra office of the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI), said relief aid had not yet reached some victims, particularly on the southern tip of South Pagai, just 50 kilometers from the epicenter of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that triggered the three-meter-high waves.
"Our volunteers tried to reach the locations by boat [on Thursday afternoon], but they were forced to return because of bad weather and rough seas," he said. "Their boat nearly capsized. Thank God they survived the weather."
The islands are sparsely populated, with less than 50 people per square kilometer, forcing rescuers to cover vast areas in search of survivors. The majority of houses in many of the fishing villages on the island were destroyed by the giant waves.
"Coordination is difficult because communication is limited," said Surung Sinaga, chairman of the West Sumatra Disaster Relief Agency (BPBD). "We're trying to evacuate those who were gravely injured in the disaster and get them to nearby hospitals and health centers," he said.
At least 23,000 people, he added, had been evacuated, and most of them are now in Sikakap, from where the relief effort is being coordinated.
Survivors in a village reached by an Agence France-Presse photographer said 30 of the community's 100 children had been killed. One man said they still had not received any assistance from the government.
"The relief from the government is very late. We still haven't received anything from the government," he told the photographer, who reached the area on North Pagai Island by boat.
Local hospitals and health centers said they were overwhelmed and in dire need of more medical supplies and personnel. "We need doctors, specialists," said Anputra, a nurse at a small hospital in North Pagai.
Meanwhile, the Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said the heavy rains and high seas hampering the aid effort would persist into next week. Syamsul Muarif, head of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said the BMKG had warned of inclement weather, including waves up to five meters high, until at least Monday.
He said that if the bad weather dragged out much longer, the distribution of aid by helicopter would have to be run from Muko-Muko in Bengkulu province, rather than from Padang. "Flying time between Muko-Muko and the Mentawai Islands is only 30 minutes, whereas from Padang to the Mentawais it's 90 minutes," he said.