PRESS BRIEFING ON AFGHANISTAN EARTHQUAKE

The number of those killed in the earthquake that had hit parts of the Baghlan province of northern Afghanistan over the last several days had been revised downwards to 600 confirmed dead so far, Kevin Kennedy, Chief of the Humanitarian Emergency Branch of the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told correspondents at a Headquarters briefing today.  It was now estimated that the total number dead would probably tally between 800 and

1,000 when access had been gained to the rest of the struck areas, he continued.  The numbers of families affected by the disaster, however, had actually increased to about 20,000, with perhaps as many as 100,000 people either having their food supplies cut off or their houses damaged.  In a helicopter assessment earlier today, it was estimated that about 90 per cent of the houses had been damaged with about 60 per cent suffering heavily or totally destroyed.

Mr. Kennedy said aftershocks continued in the region with the result that most of the people stayed outside their homes.  In fact, earlier today a

6.2 Richter scale earthquake again shook the region, but fortunately there were no additional casualties.  But, the new tremor had blocked several other roads leading into the affected area, thereby further complicating the delivery of emergency relief supplies to the victims.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the affected area had a heavy mine threat, as it lay on the conflict line between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban not too long ago.  Because of the difficulty of going by road, there was a great reliance on helicopters from the World Food Programme, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), as well as from the United States coalition to move supplies and people back and forth.

Mr. Kennedy said a number of deminers had already been deployed to work on that threat, and relief supplies were moving into the area.  It was expected that the stocks already in the region would meet the more immediate needs.  Another notable development was the establishment of a hospital to the north of the affected area by Russia.  Medicin Sans Frontier (MSF) had also set up a clinic in Narhin in the middle of the affected area.

The donor community had given “very good support” to meet the immediate needs, with additional pledges of support received from Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States, among others.  He reminded correspondents that the suffering in that area had not just started when the quake struck; it was one of the more remote areas of Afghanistan, in the heart of the drought-belt and had suffered from food problems for the last four years.  It was also a region to which refugees had been returning over the last several weeks.  So, the quake might have had an impact on the subsequent re-integration of the refugees.

In response to a correspondent’s question, Mr. Kennedy said his Office had not started any programme of rebuilding the destroyed homes, yet.  At the moment, the United Nations’ efforts were being focused on the immediate need, such as plastic sheeting, before it could get to the house-rebuilding phase.

In response to another question, he said that because of the difficulty in accessing the affected area, as of yesterday only about 30 per cent of what was considered to be affected had been seen.  He commended the lead role of the Afghan Interim Authority in the disaster response process.

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