Emergency aid reaches quake victims in Herat, Paktia

Emergency assistance, including food aid, has been sent to areas of southeastern Paktia province and western Herat province hit by recent earthquakes, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). "In Paktia, several hundred houses have been destroyed, mainly in three villages; while 150 houses have been destroyed in a village in Herat," UNAMA spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva told IRIN in the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. Earthquakes are not infrequent in the landlocked Central Asian state, particularly in remote mountainous areas of the country, where news from the affected area can take days to reach Kabul. The earthquake in Paktia on 18 July, just four days after the Herat tremor, destroyed the three villages of Gerda Serai, Waza Zadran and Mita, killing two and injuring around 40 others, the spokesman said. There were no reported casualties in Herat. Relief agencies, in collaboration with the UN, were supplying tents to those made homeless by the disaster. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) was providing 540 tents and 7,000 bed sheets, he noted. Meanwhile, two assessment teams comprising government representatives, UN agencies, NGOs and the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) were currently evaluating the situation to determine the needs of the affected families. Their work would be completed in the next few days to provide accurate information on the extent of the damage, he added. Assistance and the delivery of relief items such as food, water and tents to the 150 affected families were being carried out by the Afghan Red Crescent Society, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the IOM.