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Aid yet to reach all quake-hit villages

Scott McDonald in Bhuj

Some villages in Gujarat have still to receive relief supplies 10 days after the massive quake that ripped through the region, the International Red Cross chief said on Monday.

"Out of 600 affected villages around Bhuj, some have not been visited. I do not know the exact number but there is a need to access these villages," Didier J Cherpitel, chief executive officer of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told a news conference in New Delhi.

Bhuj was the worst hit town in the January 26 earthquake which measured 7.9 on the Richter Scale.

The Central government and the state administration have come under fire from the Opposition, the media and residents who say relief supplies that have flooded into Gujarat have not been distributed to many outlying villages.

In Bhuj, a Red Cross official said the quake was a bigger disaster than the tremor that ravaged Turkey in 1999.

"In terms of natural disasters...it is compared with Turkey, even bigger than Turkey," said Havlor Fossum Lauritzsen, a Norwegian who heads the Red Cross operation in Gujarat.

The Red Cross said it took six days after the quake before smooth coordination was established between government and non-government agencies engaged in relief operations.

Lauritzsen said he expected the post-quake relief operation in Gujarat to last three months and said the Red Cross would launch an appeal for 27 million Swiss francs ($16 million) as part of a larger appeal for the next 12 months.

He said the Red Cross expected to help 300,000 people with non-food aid such as tents and blankets, adding there was still demand because the turnover of new supplies arriving and being handed out had not left a surplus yet.

"We stay here for, I guess, at least one year," Lauritzsen said, adding that after the three-month relief phase ended it was important "to stay and continue the support and focus on development."

Government officials had asked the Red Cross to keep open a 400-bed hospital it had set up for one year, he added. Almost all medical facilities in Bhuj were destroyed or damaged by the earthquake.

Some aid groups and the media have criticised the government's handling of the relief effort but Lauritzsen said it had improved after an initial chaotic period.

"I think they have done the best to assist us from what resources they have," he said, adding that the Indian army was also helping.

The Red Cross, which has provided more than 700 tonnes of supplies, estimates that more than 700,000 people are homeless.

It has delivered 250,000 blankets, 50,000 tents and 60,000 rolls of plastic sheeting in what it calls its biggest operation in Asia in a decade.

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