The Hindu : Rain, mines slow Afghan quake aid

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 30, 2002

International

International

Rain, mines slow Afghan quake aid

NAHRIN (AFGHANISTAN) MARCH. 29 . Driving rain swept across earthquake-shattered northern Afghanistan today, further disrupting aid efforts already hampered by the threat of land mines and aftershocks.

The freezing rain, forecast to last several days, turned dirt roads into quagmires and threatened to prevent landings by U.S. military and other helicopters that have been crucial to getting food, water, medicine and tents to thousands of homeless people.

The confirmed death toll four days after a killer series of earthquakes began on Monday night, mainly centred around the town of Nahrin, was about 800 with some 500 people seriously injured. An estimated 20,000 people were camped in the open on freezing hillsides outside Nahrin, fearful of returning to the town because near non-stop aftershocks were bringing down mud buildings that had survived the original quakes.

``This has turned into a logistical nightmare,'' a foreign aid worker on the spot said. ``Rain is the last thing we needed. These poor people.''

But there was good news from a team of U.S. engineers who cleared the Salang Tunnel of several overturned vehicles that had slowed traffic to a crawl.

The tunnel, the world's highest at 11,034 feet, is the vital route from Kabul through the Hindu Kush mountains to the north and unblocking it allowed a 36-truck convoy of peacekeepers to bring medical help.

It carried 120 German, Danish and Dutch troops from Afghanistan's international peacekeeping force, including five doctors and 20 medics who arrived in Nahrin after a bruising 12-hour, 160 km drive from Kabul to set up a hospital.

The team was not planning to carry out major operations — but there was a line of patients waiting for them to set broken bones and other injuries caused mainly by falling rubble.

U.S. and British Chinook helicopters had ferried 90,900 kg of aid, including rice, beans, wheat, dates, water, blankets, tents and medical supplies to Nahrin, U.S. military spokesman said. International aid agencies have also managed to get aid supplies to a central distribution point in Nahrin, but the greater challenge is to get them to the scattered population of about 80,000 in the surrounding district.

``The aid is here, but it is difficult getting it to people,'' a U.N. spokesman said.

``People are fearful of coming back into the town because of aftershocks, so they are staying on open hillsides.''

The Interim leader, Hamid Karzai, who visited Nahrin on Wednesday and promised the survivors everything would be done to help them, has taken personal charge of the Afghan side of the relief effort putting off a trip to Turkey scheduled for Tuesday.

The tragedy has become a test of Mr. Karzai's leadership skills in a nation split down many ethnic and other lines. — Reuters

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