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| October 15, 2005 | Saturday | Ramzan 10, 1426 |
100 planes airlift relief goods to Islamabad
ISLAMABAD, Oct 14: The International community is responding generously to the UN flash appeal for the help of the Saturday’s killer earthquake victims. As many as 30 international plane are landing daily at the Chaklala airbase loaded with rescue equipment and relief goods to assist Pakistan in its biggest ever relief operation.
Overall more than 100 special planes with relief goods have arrived Islamabad so far to help the victims.
DUTCH: The Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation, Ms Agnes van Ardenne, donated 2 million euros to the relief fund established by a cooperation of humanitarian organisations in the Netherlands.
The fund “Help Victims of the Earthquake” merits all possible assistance, according to Ms Ardenne, who visited Pakistan in March this year.
The Minister is confident that her donation will be followed by many private donations of Dutch citizens.
The latest donation by the Dutch minister brings the Dutch contribution to the relief efforts in the aftermath of the massive earthquake to 14 million euros.
Earlier, the minister pledged 10 million euros for relief efforts through WFP (3 million), UNICEF (3 million), The Dutch Red Cross (1 million), the International Red Cross (1.5 million), UN-OCHA (0.5 million), Save the Children (0.5 million), Doctors of the World (a Paris based medical humanitarian organisation, (0.5 million) and other NGO’s engaged in relief work in the affected areas (1 million euros).
The costs for the activities of the Dutch Search and Rescue team are estimated at 1 million euros.
UK: British High Commissioner Mark Lyall Grant on Friday said the UK government had pledged 12 million pounds sterling contribution to the ongoing relief operations in the earthquake-hit areas of Azad Kashmir and the NWFP.
Talking to a group of reporters here today, the British high commissioner said the UK nationals and companies had made generous donations in response to the UN flash appeal.
Mr Grant said the UK government had already provided 536 tents and 20,000 blankets for the affected persons.
He said the UK would provide another $250,000 to support the World Health Organization for shipment of health kits to Pakistan.
Mr Grants said 20 more helicopters would soon join the present fleet of 40 helicopters to take part in the ongoing relief operation.
The high commissioner said the UK rescuers had saved lives of nine persons in Islamabad and Muzaffarabad. He said the rescuers teams would soon be leaving Pakistan as there was no more requirement to carry out search and rescue operations.
Turkish team: Three more Turkish military aircraft landed at Islamabad airport on Thursday with 25 tons of humanitarian aid, equipment for setting up a field hospital, and 17 doctors and 20 medics, adds Jonaid Iqbal.
The Turkish doctors have vaccinated more than 5,000 people in Muzaffarabad and its surrounding areas and pulled out eight persons from the rubble.
The Turkish organizations working in the country are the Turkish General Directorate of Civil Defence, Ministry of Interior, having 22 personnel, a medical team of the Turkish having 48 personnel; Natural Disaster Rescue Battalion, 22; Turkish Red Crescent, 19; GEA SAR team (NGO), 12; AKUT SAR team (NGO), 12; and LIDAM (NGO) with three personnel.
CANADA: Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin on Friday announced that the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) would be deployed to the earthquake-affected areas in Pakistan.
According to a handout issued by the Canadian High Commission here on Friday, the decision to deploy DART follows an assessment and evaluation made by a team of experts from foreign affairs, Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency and National Defence.
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