Aceh top priority for aid workers
MEDAN, Indonesia (CNN) -- Getting aid to Aceh, the worst region affected by the tsunami, is a major concern for relief workers in Indonesia, but its remote location is making things difficult, CNN's Atika Shubert reports.
Shubert talked Sunday to CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer about developments in Indonesia.
SHUBERT: Wolf, I'm actually in the city of Medan, which is the coordinating center for all of these relief efforts that are flooding into Aceh. Here there are aid workers, government officials, military officials. It seems just about anywhere you turn, somebody is involved in getting relief to Aceh.
At the airport here, warehouses are stacked high with food, water and medical supplies. But the problem is, even though all of this is collecting here, getting it to the people who need it most is proving to be a difficult and very slow process.
The biggest bottleneck, Wolf, is infrastructure. There just simply isn't enough here.
Even at the best of times the Aceh region was pretty remote. Now with the earthquake and tsunami waves devastating it, the road system here has been at least partially destroyed, cutting off the west coast of Aceh, in addition to the fact that getting fuel and vehicles on the ground is incredibly difficult.
Now, aid workers here say those kinks are being loosened up. Some of those bottlenecks are being unblocked. But they warn it will take time.
BLITZER: Atika, what about the fear of deadly disease breaking out in the aftermath of this tsunami?
SHUBERT: Well, this is a very real fear here. And that's why clean water is very important to get to those survivors, now. They've managed to live through an earthquake, a tsunami, but if they don't get clean water, disease could very well kill them.
And that's why using helicopters is so important here, because they're able to reach areas that are completely cut off and inaccessible; at least get those very basic, necessary supplies to hold survivors over for at least a little while, until those roads can be opened up and a flow of those goods can get to them.
