Disasters in central Asia

KABUL, Afghanistan - Avalanches and floods triggered by heavy rains and spring snow melt have killed about 150 people in recent days in the mountains of central Asia, officials said Monday.

In Afghanistan, the death toll reached 88 on Monday and officials said more than half of the country's provinces had flooded, said the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.

The government has distributed tents, blankets and sandbags to people, but aid agencies were still trying to reach an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 people in remote areas, said Aleem Siddique, spokesman for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, flooding and avalanches have killed more than 50 people in the past 10 days in northwestern Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. The toll includes 38 people who died in weekend avalanches, some of whose bodies were found Monday in the rubble of demolished homes in a remote village, police said.

And in Tajikistan, a woman and her seven children between the ages of 5 and 20 were killed Sunday by an avalanche that swallowed their home, officials said.

The destruction has been most widespread in Afghanistan, where residents say this year's spring rains are heavier than they have seen in years.

The once trickling Kabul river breached its embankments early Monday, destroying 170 homes in the capital, Kabul, Siddique said. Families were evacuated and no casualties were immediately reported.

In central Bamiyan province, 60 homes were reportedly destroyed by an avalanche Sunday night, Siddique said. The area is difficult to access because of flooding, which has reportedly killed about 28 people, he said.

In Panjshir, north of Kabul, six districts have suffered avalanches and floods, killing nine people and destroying 40 homes.

Heavy rains and snow have been lashing Pakistan's rugged Chitral district, about 170 miles northwest of the capital Islamabad, since late last week. In some areas, 6 feet of snow has fallen in the past several days, officials said.

One of the weekend avalanches in Pakistan hit 26 homes in the village of Wasij, killing at least 34 people, police official Ali Khan said Monday. Another avalanche hit a home in the village of Postaki, killing four, he said. And 11 people were missing when an avalanche hit Olas village on Sunday. Police had no information on their fates.

Military helicopters were expected to bring medicine, food and blankets to victims after bad weather prevented previous flights to the remote area, said police official Ijaz Ahmed.

Humanitarian crisis threatens tsunami-hit Solomons

HONIARA, April 3 (Reuters) - A humanitarian crisis triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami threatened thousands of homeless people in the Solomon Islands on Tuesday as aid began to trickle in and powerful aftershocks rattled the country.

After the first disaster teams reached hard-hit Western and Choiseul Provinces, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said aerial patrols had reported "massive and widespread" destruction from Monday's magnitude 8.0 quake and tsunami.

Aerial pictures showed flattened homes and twisted iron roofs on the ground all along the remote coastline as people wandered seemingly aimlessly on roads clogged by debris and boats hurled ashore by powerful waves up to 10 metres high.

The first priority of rescue teams, Sogavare said, would be to restore communications with affected areas amid official estimates that 22 people had been killed and 5,409 left homeless. The death toll was expected to rise.

"We will be needing a mobile hospital facility and I think Australia and New Zealand have kindly offered to come forward on that," Sogavare said.

Australian aid agency Caritas said infection would set in quickly among those injured, with antibiotics in short supply and doctors currently tending to survivors at a hilltop aid station near Gizo, the worst affected town.

"Many water tanks have been damaged, and we also have a problem with food supplies. The gardens have been inundated, so there is a problem with fresh food," Caritas spokeswoman Liz Stone told Australian radio.

Thousands of villagers remained on high ground as more than 27 aftershocks, including a magnitude 6.2 quake, shook the region and scientists warned more tsunamis could follow.

With a state of emergency in force, a police patrol boat carrying food and emergency supplies arrived in Gizo, where schools and a hospital were damaged, and dozens of houses sucked into the sea. At least 13 villages were feared destroyed.

"There are vast tracts of land, many, many islands and very complicated terrain," Deputy Solomons Police Commissioner Peter Marshall told reporters.

The region around Gizo is popular with international tourists and scuba divers for its corals. A New Zealand resident was among the dead, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said.

AID ATTEMPT

Gizo dive shop owner Danny Kennedy said workers were trying to clear roads and the local airport of debris to allow military aid flights to bring in tents, medical supplies and food.

"It's basically just houses stacked on top of one another, roofing iron. It's still quite a mess," he told Reuters. "One village on Simbo was completely wiped out. The entire village is gone and where the people are we have no idea."

Kennedy said villagers were too traumatised to search homes to find who might be buried under the rubble of their houses and villages, or to use traditional canoes to assess damage.

Most people in the low-lying town of 20,000 rely on fishing or logging for jobs. Many homes were built of timber and bamboo, making them particularly vulnerable.

The majority of Solomon Islanders live on subsistence agriculture with less than a quarter of the population having paid jobs. In 2006 the country had a GDP of $322 million.

Gizo is the second largest town and is surrounded by smaller islands, including Kennedy Island, named after late U.S. president John F. Kennedy, who swam to safety there after his navy patrol boat was rammed in World War Two.

The Solomons Red Cross said about 2,000 Gizo residents were homeless, while 500 houses might have been damaged or destroyed. Other estimates said more than 900 homes had been levelled.

A bishop and three worshippers were killed when the tsunami struck the island of Simbo during a church ordination, the United Church said.

In neigbouring Papua New Guinea, authorities were investigating reports that a tsunami had swept away a family of five in the PNG province of Milne Bay.

The quake struck 350 km (220 miles) northwest of Honiara and sparked a tsunami alert around the Pacific.

Government and Red Cross disaster teams are taking tents and supplies to the affected area. Australia has offered A$2 million ($1.6 million) in aid, while New Zealand offered NZ$500,000 ($360,000) and sent an air force plane laden with supplies, including water containers, blankets, tarpaulins, food and lamps.

The United Nations said it had a full Disaster Assessment and Coordination team on standby for deployment to the Solomons.

The Solomon Islands lie on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire" where volcanic activity and earthquakes are fairly common.

Successive cyclones bring Madagascar to its knees

JOHANNESBURG, 3 April 2007 (IRIN) - As the sixth mayor cyclone to hit Madagascar this season tears across the northeast of the impoverished Indian ocean island, a relentless succession of natural disasters has left nearly half a million people in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.

Tropical cyclone Jaya made landfall on Madagascar's northeastern coast today on a projected trajectory that will see it rage through areas already devastated by cyclone Indlala just over two weeks ago.

"This is the worst cyclone season in the recorded history of the country," Dusan Zupka, the Senior Emergency Coordination Officer assigned to Madagascar by the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva, told IRIN.

According to the latest UN situation report, almost 130,000 people were "directly affected by cyclone Indlala" and "at least 88 people were killed and 30 disappeared, with about 30,000 left homeless or deprived of all their belongings."

Natural disasters have been tormenting the island since the end of last year; Indlala followed in the wake of five destructive cyclones and unprecedented flooding. "Since December 2006, approximately 450,000 people have become the victims of natural disasters all over Madagascar," said a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) statement released today.

"If we cannot speak of a tsunami here in Madagascar, we can at least say that the affects of the natural disasters are somewhat similar to that in the aftermath of the tsunami," said Bruno Maes, the UNICEF Representative in Madagascar.

"Considering the low level of human development [in Madagascar], the consequences are huge," Zupka said. Madagascar already faces serious challenges: More than 85 percent of its 19.1 million people live on less than US$2 a day, according to the 2006 United Nations Human Development report, and food insecurity and malnutrition are chronic, particularly in the drought-prone south.

"Due to the flooding, tens of thousands of hectares of rice, the basic food source for the Malagasy, have also been destroyed," the UNICEF statement said. "With the increased food insecurity and shortage, there is the risk of increased malnutrition."

Access to affected areas is a major obstacle to the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and although assessments are underway, immediate needs are critical.

Communication infrastructure, roads, schools and health centres have been severely damaged; provision of food, potable water, shelter, medicines, sanitation facilities, dealing with waterborne diseases and finding alternative means of transportation - like helicopters - until roads are fixed, are essential.

Officials have warned that in-country supplies are drained. "We are overstretched in terms of human capacity and financial resources," Zupka said, adding that international donors had been generous and that "all UN agencies have boosted capacity [in Madagascar].

"Some replenishment has already come from the international community: "contributions so far in response to the cyclones/floods amount to ARIARY 1.5 billion (US$7.5 million)," the UN report noted.

Zupka expressed concern over the lack of attention the emergency in Madagascar had received in the international media, considering the extent of the multiple disasters and the vulnerability of the island and its people. "It is striking that so little attention is being paid to a crisis that affects so many that are already vulnerable because of poverty," he commented.

With the cyclone season continuing until the end of April or early May, expectations are that Jaya will not be the last disaster to strike the island.