UNICEF delivers more aid to quake victims

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has delivered 30 mt of additional relief supplies to victims of last month's devastating earthquake in northwestern Iran. "Shelter and especially reconstruction are still the main needs," Luc Chauvin, a UNICEF programme officer in the Iranian capital, Tehran, told IRIN on Tuesday. "While people have been provided with tents by the Iranian Red Crescent, this will only be a temporary solution as winter approaches." His comments follow Monday's delivery of three large container trucks containing 5,000 jerry cans and 10 five-thousand-litre collapsable water tanks to Razan district, 250 km southwest of Tehran, in Hamadan province - one of three provinces affected by the quake. "This particular area has not yet received any international assistance," Chauvin said. Some 235 people were killed and 1,300 injured when the quake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter Scale, devastated 70 villages in the provinces of Qazvin, Hamadan and Zanjan on 22 June. Destruction in the villages ranged from 10 to 90 percent, leaving thousands homeless and 2,000 hectacres of farmland destroyed. According to the UNICEF representative, the jerry cans, which would be distributed immediately to the families living in tents, would enable them to carry water back to their shelters. The need was determined by a recent UN inter-agency mission to the area 10 days earlier, he added. The assistance, to be distributed by the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS), was material already available in the eastern Iranian city of Mashad as part of UNICEF's emergency contingency plans and assistance for Afghanistan. Monday's shipment was the third consignment of relief supplies provided by UNICEF to victims of the quake. On 25 June, the agency dispatched 20 mt of water supplies, funded by the Dutch and British governments, to Hesar village in Qazvin province, while 45 mt of assistance donated by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) arrived in the Iranian capital on 3 July. Included in this were 12,000 hygiene kits, 5,000 blankets, two water-treatment units, each capable of providing water for 10,000 people, as well as six 10,000-litre water bladders. Chauvin noted, however, the USAID assistance had yet to be distributed to the field, but was expected to be dispatched shortly. Asked if UNICEF would be providing more assistance, Chauvin said they were still waiting for additional funding, but hoped to be able to do more. The agency has already made available about US $500,000 to assist the most vulnerable, including children and women, affected by the quake.