Massive tsunami aid operation picks up steam in race to battle disease

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2005

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP) — An unprecedented global aid operation gathered steam to save survivors of Asia's tsunamis as signs crept up of disease in the overflowing morgues after the disaster that claimed more than 127,000 lives.

On the one-week anniversary of one of the world's worst natural disasters, relief workers said they were beginning to get through a logjam at wiped-out air strips to reach a million needy people in the devastated Indonesian province of Aceh.

"Things are improving. The backlog is starting to clear," Michael Elmquist, the chief of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Indonesia, told AFP.

The United States said it would deploy up to 1,500 marines for tsunami relief in Sri Lanka after sending 17 Navy...