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Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 11, 2005

National

National

Navy's relief mission on course

By P. S. Suryanarayana

JAKARTA, JAN. 10. The Indian Navy's relief mission is well on course at Meulaboh town, which was the worst affected by the earthquake and the tsunami along the Aceh coastline of Indonesia, sources monitoring the relief operations said.

Today's inclement weather in the area posed challenges, but the mission is still on, and the military equipment and personnelof the two Navy ships deployed there, "are safe," the sources said.

The Indian Navy personnel are now functioning entirely "in coordination with the Indonesian military and civilian authorities." They arrived off the Meulaboh coastline on January 5 and set up relief facilities the following day.

Politically significant

The fact that Singapore is the only other country so far permitted by Indonesia to render humanitarian help at Meulaboh and to use required military equipment and personnel, ispolitically significant.

While the U.S. Navy has been assigned a zone north of Meulaboh for relief operations, the Malaysian Navy is operating along an area on the south-eastern side. The Indian Navy has deployed INS Nirupak, a survey ship converted into a 45-bed floating hospital, and INS Khukri, a missile corvette with relief supplies worth about $ 1 million.

An on-shore medical camp, with the facilities of a field hospital, has been set up near Masjid Agung in Meulaboh town, 80 per cent of which was damaged, according to the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. INS Nirupak is equipped with modern diagnostic and laboratory facilities and intensive care units. It has several surgeons, physicians and "adequate" paramedical staff. A multi-purpose Chetak helicopter is available to ferry patients from the medical camp to the floating hospital for immediate attention.

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