Aid lies stranded on tarmac after crash

Vital tsunami relief was stranded today after an aid plane crashed, shutting the airport in Indonesia's worst hit region.

The runway in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh had to be closed after the landing gear of a chartered Boeing 737 cargo plane collapsed. It is thought the plane, resting on a wing about one third of the way down the runway, may have hit a cow as it touched down.

Helicopters continued to fly in and out of the airport but planes were not able to land since the crash yesterday evening. The runway was finally cleared this morning.

A backlog of planes due to bring in aid built up in Medan, Sumatra's largest city 280 miles to the south-east, which has been used as a staging post by the international relief organisations.

The crash was the latest obstacle in the way of an aid effort already seriously hampered by the collapse of infrastructure in Indonesia's northern Sumatra districts.

Roads, railways, bridges and ports were wrecked by the tsunami, rendering many areas inaccessible except by helicopter.

The Aceh crash came as aid chiefs admitted today there were still major problems in delivering vital help to some of the regions worst hit by the tsunami. Despite more than £1billion pledged worldwide for reconstruction and relief in Asia, logistical difficulties were hampering efforts in the devastated areas around the earthquake's epicentre in Sumatra - with many areas yet to be reached.

About 1.8 million people need food aid in the affected areas. An estimated 5million people have been left homeless.

The UN's humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, said: "My heart goes out to those along the Sumatra coast because we are not even there and those are the hardest hit."

The west coast of Sumatra is low and took the full blast of the tsunami when it was at its highest, Mr Egeland said. "Many, many of these villages are gone. There is no trace of them. They had hardly any roads before. Now they have nothing. The death toll will grow exponentially on the western coast of Sumatra," he added.

"What will be the final toll we will never know, but we may be talking of tens of thousands of further deaths in this area."

Oxfam organiser Mona Laczo said the charity had experienced "hugely frustrating" difficulties in delivering aid to Aceh.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the amount of aid and staff arriving in the region was causing bottlenecks, with tsunami damage slowing land transport of relief supplies.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies also said some of its aid ef forts were being slowed. Spokeswoman Sian Bowen said: "There have been some logistical challenges. Some of the areas are pretty inaccessible."

However, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said it had delivered 318 tons of rice, noodles and biscuits and 40,000 litres of water to Aceh - enough to feed 100,000 people for a week.