U.S. helicopters speed aid to Indonesia

KARIM RAJIA, Indonesia — U.S. helicopters rescued dozens of desperate and weak tsunami survivors, including a young girl clutching a stuffed Snoopy dog, as the American military relief operation reached out to remote areas of Indonesia with cartons of food and water on Monday.

Although the United States was not among the first at the scene after last week's natural disaster thousands of miles from American shores, it is now spearheading the international relief effort and delivering more supplies than any other nation. A U.S. warship strike group carrying thousands more Marines was headed in to help.

U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said he was encouraged by the military response to the Dec. 26 tsunami, singling out U.S. Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman for praise.

"Whatever we have asked, it has been delivered the next day and that is what is producing results quicker and more immediately to those in most need than we have had in any other similar disaster," Egeland said in New York.

In Indonesia, the Americans flew missions from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln along a 120-mile stretch of Sumatra island's ravaged coastline, further revealing the extent of the destruction. The tsunami, triggered by the world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years, is believed to have killed more than 150,000 people in Asia and Africa; considerably more than half of the deaths were on Sumatra.

Many of the 60 victims picked up in more than two dozen missions Monday — including children, elderly and two pregnant women — were too weak from eight days with little food or water to speak or move. Doctors said they suffered from pneumonia, broken bones, infected wounds and tetanus. Many appeared deeply traumatized. At least 25 were in critical condition.

The American pilots ferried the survivors to a medical field station in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. The ones not rushed on stretchers were placed on a blue plastic sheet, among them a young girl clutching a stuffed Snoopy dog. Some cried, and aid workers stroked their arms and backs to comfort them. They were given chocolate wafers, water, sweaters and T-shirts.

In the shattered village of Meulaboh, an injured man stretched out on the ground, hooked to an intravenous drip that hung from a tree branch outside an overcrowded hospital emergency room. In Lam Jamek, another ruined village, survivors used an elephant to pull a vehicle to the provincial capital.