Tsunami aid stuck in Indonesian port for months
More than 70 shipping containers packed with mosquito nets, school supplies and timber for tsunami survivors have been stuck at an Indonesian port for months because of inadequate documentation, an official said today.
“I have been trying to reach the owners, through letters and phone calls, telling them to claim the shipments, as we are worried that the aid will be damaged if it stays here too long,” said Tommy Sianipar, a senior official at Belawan International Port on the east coast of Sumatra Island.
The port has handled more than 7,500 containers of aid since the tsunami struck on December 26, 2004, killing at least 130,000 people on the northern tip of Sumatra Island and leaving half a million homeless.
Sianipar said 74 containers carrying aid materials had been waiting at the port for several months because of inadequate paper work provided by the organisations that arranged the shipments.
One donor organisation said it was considering giving up getting clearance for a container of mattresses and blankets it said had been stuck at the port for 11 months.
“It has become too expensive,” said Hendri Satrio, a spokesman for the Sampoerna Foundation, a charity run by a large Indonesian cigarette manufacturer. “Tsunami victims in Aceh no longer need blankets and mattresses. They need houses now.”
