Earthquake in Afghanistan

AHMED RASHID IN ISLAMABAD.

Daily Telegraph. February 8, 1998

The first Western aid workers have reached remote and snow bound villages in north western Afghanistan, which were devestated by an earthquake last Wednesday. Earlier estimates that over 3000 people were killed now appear too high, but over 2000 people are known to have died with 350 injured in a single town.

On Saturday French doctors and nurses from Medecins Sans Frontier (MSF) arrived in Rostaq, a small town in Takhar province close to the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border to find the town destroyed and over 350 injured people needing immediate medical attention. Rostaq was the epi centre of the earthquake.

''The Rostaq hospital can only accommodate 20 people but there were already 80 injured there, without medecines or doctors when relief workers arrived,'' said a UN official. Hundreds more injured people were camped in the freezing cold as their mud brick homes had been destroyed.

On Sunday a helicopter belonging to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) flew into Hajadar, a village 35 miles north west of Rostaq with supplies of food, blankets and kerosene.

Efforts by the UN to hire helicopters and fly in more aid from Dushanbe, the capital of the Central Asian Republic of Tajikistan were foiled because of Tajik bureaucratic obstructions. Tajikistan has been devestated by civil war, but it is the closest base for helicopters which are desperately needed for delivering supplies to the devestated Afghan villages.

Takhar province, situated at the southern end of the massive Pamir mountain range is one of the most inaccessable regions in the world. It took two days for news of the earthquake to reach Pakistan,where most UN agencies are based.

The earthquake, which registered 6.1 on the Richter scale created huge fissues and landslides that destroyed dozens of villages and blocked many of the dirt track roads, making relief efforts even more difficult.

Takhar is controlled by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, but the Taliban and the Northern Alliance have faught for control of the province in recent months. The Taliban leader Mullah Omar had ordered his troops to stop fighting in the region and help relief efforts.

However an Alliance spokesman said that Taliban air raids on Saturday killed 17 people in Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province. The report could not be confirmed by independent sources.

The European Union, India and Pakistan have promised to send aid to the victims but the most difficult problem will be gaining access to the region.