![[Pakistan] An UNHAS helicopter drops food for villagers in Kohistan where snow has already fallen [Date picture taken: 12/20/2005]](https://assets.thenewhumanitarian.org/s3fs-public/styles/responsive_large_2x/public/images/200512212.jpg.webp?itok=dQpAvu81 "UNHAS chopper in action last winter in northern Pakistan")
The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) in Pakistan is gearing up to mobilise its helicopter operations for the winter months by the start of November. It will carry food and non-food items across the earthquake-affected areas as poor weather makes access increasingly difficult, officials said on Thursday.
UNHAS, a non-profit UN service provider under the stewardship of the World Food Programme (WFP) would run at least four helicopters during its four-month winter operation from November to February 2007.
“At the moment, the operational details are being finalised. Also, we have only approximately US $3 million available for the operation, while the cost for [those] months is reaching $4.5 million,” Amjad Jamal, a WFP spokesman, said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
The helicopters will mainly be used to pre-position food in remote, hilly areas that will soon be cut off as the winter closes in.
Launched just two days after last October’s massive 7.6-magnitude earthquake, which left more than 75,000 people dead and rendered over 3.5 million homeless across northern Pakistan, the service provided a vital source of relief supplies for many remote communities.
During the eight month-long operation that concluding at the end of May, UNHAS employed 24 helicopters in total, including eight from the United States and NATO forces.
In addition to vital food and non-food assistance amounting to some 28,000 mt, the UNHAS helicopter service was instrumental in ferrying aid workers to the field and returning with quake survivors in need of medical evacuation. At the height of the disaster, the helicopter service was moving up to 420 mt of goods a day.
The United States has also announced that it will bring US army’s CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters back into operation next week to help deliver reconstruction materials to remote parts of the Allai and Khagan Valleys in the country’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
At the height of disaster relief operations during last winter, the Pentagon provided 21 CH-47s, transporting some 14,000 mt of relief supplies and evacuating more than 3,000 casualties from the quake-affected region.
TS/JL/SC
UNHAS, a non-profit UN service provider under the stewardship of the World Food Programme (WFP) would run at least four helicopters during its four-month winter operation from November to February 2007.
“At the moment, the operational details are being finalised. Also, we have only approximately US $3 million available for the operation, while the cost for [those] months is reaching $4.5 million,” Amjad Jamal, a WFP spokesman, said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
The helicopters will mainly be used to pre-position food in remote, hilly areas that will soon be cut off as the winter closes in.
Launched just two days after last October’s massive 7.6-magnitude earthquake, which left more than 75,000 people dead and rendered over 3.5 million homeless across northern Pakistan, the service provided a vital source of relief supplies for many remote communities.
During the eight month-long operation that concluding at the end of May, UNHAS employed 24 helicopters in total, including eight from the United States and NATO forces.
In addition to vital food and non-food assistance amounting to some 28,000 mt, the UNHAS helicopter service was instrumental in ferrying aid workers to the field and returning with quake survivors in need of medical evacuation. At the height of the disaster, the helicopter service was moving up to 420 mt of goods a day.
The United States has also announced that it will bring US army’s CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters back into operation next week to help deliver reconstruction materials to remote parts of the Allai and Khagan Valleys in the country’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
At the height of disaster relief operations during last winter, the Pentagon provided 21 CH-47s, transporting some 14,000 mt of relief supplies and evacuating more than 3,000 casualties from the quake-affected region.
TS/JL/SC
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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