Bangkok--Jan 7--WFP
WFP Operational Update
INDONESIA
United Nations World Food Programme Executive-Director James Morris held talks today on the international response to the Asia tsunami catastrophe with Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla and key donors in Jakarta.
The meetings, at an international conference, followed Morris’ launching of a WFP appeal for U.S. $256 million to provide assistance for six months to help two million people from Asia to Africa recover from the earthquake and tsunami that hit coastal communities on December 26.
WFP’s needs are part of a U.S. $977-million package of regional aid operations proposed by UN agencies and announced by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the one-day high-level conference of Asian leaders and top donors on the disaster.
Morris and Annan discussed the next steps in a joint meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was shocked by the extent of the destruction when he flew over the western coast of Aceh province on Wednesday.
Morris highlighted key operational concerns for WFP in talks with Indonesian Vice-President Kalla, who is in charge of his country’s response to the disaster that killed more than 145,000 people across the Pacific rim.
In his talks with Kalla, Morris asked for continued Indonesian government support. Kalla thanked WFP for its work and drew attention to the need for long-term planning to complement the emergency response.
Morris also had bilateral meetings with the French Minister of International Cooperation, the South African Minister of Health and the president of the Asian Development Bank..
In the Aceh provincial capital of Banda Aceh, aid workers and survivors of the disaster fled from buildings and into the streets when an aftershock registering 6.2 on the Richter scale shook the city after dawn on Thursday.
The powerful aftershock was the latest in a series since the earthquake off Sumatra island, the worst in 40 years.
SRI LANKA
To date, WFP has dispatched more than 400 truckloads of food (3,605 tons) since the start of the emergency operation on Dec. 28. The food covers a 15-day period and will feed more than 490,000 people.
WFP is dispatching rice, lentils and flour to 12 district warehouses; WFP partners distribute from the warehouses to the camps for displaced persons.
Local trucking capacity is still limited; WFP will bring in an additional 48 trucks over the coming weeks.
While WFP is providing the largest quantity of food in Sri Lanka, private donations of food are significant in Sri Lanka -- and local authorities have generally been distributing private donations first, as many of those foodstuffs are perishable.
WFP, with UNICEF, will start distributing fortified biscuits in the hardest hit districts, starting with Amparai, Batticaloa and Tincomalee, to 72,000 vulnerable children under 10 years old over a nine-day period. Infants less than one year old will be given the bar dissolved into a porridge.
THE MALDIVES
A WFP aircraft arrived today in the capital Male with 37 metric tons of fortified biscuits and eight metric tons of bleaching powder, to be used by the WHO for water purification.
1.3 metric tonnes of WFP food aid has reached distribution centers around the country.
A WFP team, joined by CARE, Oxfam UK and other UN agencies, will begin on Saturday to assess the impact of the tsunami on the two hardest-hit atolls in the country, Hadhumati and Kolhumdulu. This assessment is expected to be complete by January 11.
MYANMAR
A WFP assessment team returned from Kaw Thoung, a district on the south coast of Myanmar, reporting minimal damages from the tsunamis. They visited 13 villages in the south coast, in collaboration with the International Committee for the Red Cross, MSF Switzerland, UNICEF and World Vision to verify government data on the impact.
The limited damage has been attributed by U.S. scientists to a function of the north-south fault line. Earlier, a WFP team traveled to the Irrawaddy Division on the country's west side where the destruction was also minimal. The UN in Myanmar was scheduled to release a report today on the assessments and the recommendations for humanitarian aid.
THAILAND
WFP deployed a team to southern Thailand on January 4 to identify the communities impacted by the tsunamis and most in need of food aid, as well as the most appropriate distribution methods. This work follows an intitial UN inter-agency assessment mission that went to the area immediately after the earthquake.
Working in conjunction with UNICEF, the team is evaluating the possibility of aid to school lunch programs in Ranong and Phang-nga provinces.
SOMALIA
WFP food aid reached an additional 1,800 people in Hafun and Eyl districts on Wednesday.
To date, 218 tons of food aid has been distributed to 12,000 beneficiaries along a 500 km stretch of northeast Somalia affected by the tsunami.
A WFP assessment team left Bossaso on Thursday to inspect airstrips and security near the most affected districts to set up an air shuttle for relief workers, using a WFP-managed Cessna Caravan based in Bossaso.
REGIONAL
WFP is conducting an unprecedented airlift from its Asia Emergency Response Facility (AERF) in Cambodia, shipping crucial emergency equipment to Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Eleven Toyota pick-ups and two Land Cruisers have been shipped out, along with collapsible warehouses, water storage tanks, motorcycles, and 14 tons of fortified biscuits. Next to be airlifted are 13 transport trucks destined for Sri Lanka. The materiel was carried by an Ilyushin-76 to either Colombo or Medan, Indonesia, on January 2, 3 and 4. WFP will also soon begin airlifting 13
WFP intends to virtually “empty the warehouse” to meet the needs of the unparalleled crisis in the region, according to AERF Manager David Mayson. “We expect a minimum of two more flights in the next two days,” he said.
The AERF was set up in November 2002 following an agreement with the Royal Government of Cambodia to strengthen WFP and other humanitarian agency relief response capacities in Asia. The facility, located just outside the capital Phnom Penh, is part of WFP’s triangular concept of logistical support equipment, which includes the UN Humanitarian Response Depot at Brindisi, Italy and storage facilities in Dubai.
For more information please contact:
Heather Hill, WFP Thailand
Mob: +66 1701 9208, Mobile + 662 659 8690
email: [email protected]
Michael Huggins, WFP Indonesia
Mob: +62 811 864383, Thuraya: +881 6315 53604;
email: [email protected]
Jordan Dey, WFP Sri Lanka.
Tel: + 9411 2586244. email: [email protected]
Jonathan Dumont, WFP Sri Lanka Mob: +39 340 224 9140; Thuraya: +882 165 4203516. email: [email protected]
Peter Smerdon, WFP/Indonesia Tel: + 6221 5734332, Mob: + 62 811 186923. E-mail: [email protected]
Caroline Hurford, WFP Rome. Tel: + 3906 65132330. Mob: + 393481325018
Trevor Rowe, WFP New York. Mob: +1 646 8241112, office: +1 212 963 5196
email: [email protected] End.