BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 4, 2002

Aid to tremor-hit Afghan town continues

Dushanbe, 3 April: Humanitarian organizations continue to provide aid in clearing up the aftermath of the earthquake in the Afghan town of Nahrin. The delivery of aid to the region is being complicated by the difficult accessibility of the regions, mines, poor sanitary conditions and changeable weather. After a meeting with the local authorities in Nahrin, which took place on 29 March, FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance, an affiliate of the Aga Khan Development Network, is also implementing an emergency programme to resolve the problems of drinking water and sanitation.

[Passage omitted: close cooperation with the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in providing aid; difficult accessibility of the region; aid distributed in Nahrin]

The FOCUS program has already sent jeeps and lorries to the disaster zone and prepared foodstuffs for 20,000 people. FOCUS sent tents, water-purification filters, stoves, 20,000 additional blankets, over 81,000 pairs of shoes, plastic panels for tents and mattresses to the victims, from its regional storehouses.

We recall that about 30-40,000 homes in a radius of 25 km from the town of Nahrin were destroyed as a result of the earthquake. As of today, 1,042 families in the Nahrin region had received food aid.

According to the preliminary data, the majority of the population who suffered from the earthquake have already been provided with foodstuffs and tents.

Source: Asia-Plus news agency, Dushanbe, in Russian 0955 gmt 3 Apr 02

/BBC Monitoring/ (c) BBC.

All Material Subject to Copyright