| But it's stingy and now it's racist, so it doesn't count. Just ignore it... |
One of the biggest U.S. military disaster relief missions in history kicked into high gear Saturday as an aircraft carrier battle group arrived off the shores of tsunami-battered Sumatra and began launching helicopters laden with supplies. A flotilla carrying Marines and water purifying equipment was heading for Sri Lanka, meanwhile, and a former staging base for B-52 bombers in Thailand roared with the takeoffs and landings of giant cargo planes. At least nine Seahawk helicopters from the USS Abraham Lincoln began flying badly needed relief missions, supplying material for temporary shelters into villages along Sumatra's devastated northwest coast.
As many as 100,000 people are feared dead on Sumatra, which was closest to the epicenter of the catastrophic Dec. 26 quake and tsunami. Although aid has been piling up in regional airports, officials have had trouble getting it out to the areas in need and the U.S. military was expected to ease the bottleneck. "The issue really is how do we get help most effectively to those who need," said U.S. Ambassador B. Lynn Pascoe. |