Massive relief effort in quake-hit area

The United Nations, international and local aid agencies and Afghan authorities stepped up relief and rescue work in northern Afghanistan on Wednesday following a series of devastating earthquakes which reportedly killed hundreds of people and destroyed thousands of homes.

Interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai said about 1,000 people had been killed but disaster relief officials said the final death count would probably be below 800. Aid workers said they had not managed to reach some isolated villages because access was blocked by minefields left over from the fighting between the Taliban and the opposition Northern Alliance.

"A massive relief operation began as soon as word reached the United Nations and NGOs of the devastation of the earthquake," Rebecca Richards, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

"According to many local sources and the international teams which have been there during the course of the day, they estimate that all the villages in Nahrin centre and its vicinity have received serious damage," Richards said.

Aid workers said most of the deaths had occurred when hundreds of buildings collapsed in the district of Nahrin in Baghlan province after an initial quake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale devastated the region at about 1930 local time on Monday.

Six Afghan army helicopters were flown to the region to remove the dead and transport immunisation experts, medical kits and officials.

A 12-member team from the international peacekeeping force was also on the ground to assess needs, said Flight Lt. Tony Marshall in Kabul. The US Army at Bagram air base, about 100 km from the quake's epicentre, sent an assessment team to see if American troops could play a role in rescue and recovery efforts, said spokesman Maj. Bryan Hilferty.

About 24,000 families live in Nahrin and Burkah. Although the quake was not particularly powerful, its epicentre - 175 km north of Kabul in the Hindu Kush mountains - was close to Nahrin, and hence the loss of life and destruction.

A Medicins Sans Frontieres official said their emergency clinics had treated 160 injured people so far and had made a hospital functional in the town of Pol-e Khomri, two hours drive from the worst affected region.

A UN official told IRIN in Kabul that 30 critically injured people had been airlifted to the hospital in Pol-e Khomri on Wednesday. "Families who are displaced have made makeshift shelters next to their damaged houses, and many families have moved out due to fear of tremors. Tremors were continuous throughout the day, and were experienced in the locality every few minutes," the official added.

A World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman, Alejandro Chicheri, told IRIN in Kabul that 552 mt of food had already been dispatched to feed 7,000 families.

"More food will be sent once we know the number of people affected. They are saying up to 20,000 families have been affected, but we do not know to what extent and what do they need," he said.

Chicheri said three WFP helicopters had been put on relief-duty shuttling between Mazar-e Sharif and Nahrin, bringing emergency supplies to the area and transporting rescue officials.

In response to an emergency appeal for aid in the face of the disaster by the Karzai administration, dozens of NGOs and UN agencies have rushed in tents, blankets, jerry cans, medical supplies and other essential items, initially from the northern Afghan town of Mazar-e Sharif, both by air and by road.

Earthquakes and seismic activity are common in the Hindu Kush mountains. Strong quakes in February and May of 1998 killed nearly 10,000 people.