Second rotation leaves to help with tsunami relief

The second deployment of New Zealand military personnel to the tsunami-ravaged area of Indonesia has left the air force's Ohakea base.

The Boeing 757 aircraft took off for Jakarta, via Darwin, today with about 60 people on board who are part of New Zealand's tsunami relief operation.

The contingent is made up of a light medical team and Royal New Zealand Air Force air crew.

They will replace colleagues stationed in Jakarta, Medan and parts of the tsunami devastated province of Aceh.

Joint Forces acting Commander Air Commodore Dick Newlands described their work as vitally important, as Asia tries to pick up the pieces of devastated lives.

The group is expected to be stationed in the region for 60 days.

Air force engineers were also running diagnostic checks on the air force's other Boeing 757.

It was due to leave for Afghanistan on Monday to bring back an earlier military deployment who have been working on the rebuilding of the country.

The aircraft landed in Christchurch yesterday with a warning light showing in the cockpit.

Meanwhile Indonesia bid farewell to the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on Thursday as foreign troops began to scale back tsunami relief after five weeks of ferrying food, water and help to survivors.

Australia's military would leave within the next few weeks, Prime Minister John Howard told reporters a day after visiting devastated Aceh province, where giant waves barrelled ashore on December 26 to kill 110,000 people and leave another 130,000 missing.

"All along we have agreed with the Indonesians that we would stay as long as needed and not a moment longer," the US ambassador to Indonesia, B Lynn Pascoe, said in a statement.

"The time has come to move on to the next stage of rebuilding and reconstruction and to pass the torch on to other organisations, such as USAID," Pascoe said, referring to the US government's aid agency

About 1000 servicemen stood to attention on the Lincoln's flight deck as Pascoe and US army officials were joined by Indonesian Social Welfare Minister Alwi Shihab and military chief General Endriartono Sutarto. "I hope this will pave the way for a wider range of cooperation between our two armed forces," Sutarto said as the US vessel prepared to set sail for Singapore on Friday.

The presence of US and other foreign troops has been a sensitive issue in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country -- especially in troubled Aceh province, where the military has been fighting separatist rebels for nearly 30 years.

Indonesian officials have said foreign troops should leave by the end of March. US officials said recently they expected to finish their work by the end of February as civilian relief organisations take over operations.

Helicopters from the Lincoln were the backbone of supply lines that reached remote villages and helped stave off a second wave of deaths from starvation and disease after as many as 300,000 people died or disappeared in the tsunami around the Indian Ocean region.

The US military is employing more than 9700 personnel and 13 ships on relief efforts across the Indian Ocean this week, while its pilots had delivered 23 million pounds of supplies since the tsunami, a US Pacific Command website said.

As of February 2, before the departure of the Lincoln, 3260 foreign troops from 14 countries were in Aceh, Indonesian military data showed.

Aid groups were now turning their attention to rebuilding shattered coastal areas, David Nabarro, the World Health Organisation's crisis chief, said on a visit to Aceh.

"We like to see communities stand on their own feet, not to be dependent on external aid. That's the challenge now for all of us," he told Reuters.

Remaining off the Sumatran coast is the the hospital ship USNS Mercy, which has about 700 beds and a team of public health officials aboard.

Indonesia has said it is renting boats to help ferry supplies from Banda Aceh to other towns on Sumatra's west coast. The United Nations and other agencies also have many helicopters in operation.

Health officials said the threat of disease had subsided, particularly in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, but Acehnese -- more than 400,000 of whom are homeless -- remained at some risk from cholera and mosquito-borne malaria and dengue fever.

"Killer diseases are always lurking around the corner," the WHO's Nabarro said. "But we are confident we have got the vigilance in place."

- NZPA, Newstalk ZB and Reuters