Aid Finally Reaching Earthquake Victims

A Hercules cargo plane parachuted food, plastic sheeting and other emergency aid to snowbound residents of quake-ravaged northeastern Afghanistan on Thursday - the first airdrop to the isolated region.

Some aid also got in aboard flimsy woooden rafts, which ferried food and tents across the Oxus River from neighboring Tajikistan.

The plane took off from neighboring Pakistan to drop supplies to the remote areas devastated by the Feb. 4 earthquake, which killed at least 5,000 people and left another 30,000 homeless.

Snow and fog have blocked delivery of aid to many areas devastated by the quake. But conditions improved Thursday, allowing the plane, leased by the United Nations and the Red Cross, to fly supplies to Rustaq, the hardest-hit region.

“It’s a clear sunny day … which is a miracle,” said Rupert Colville, a U.N. official. “We haven’t had two good days running since this began.”

Colville spoke in the river town of Dasht-e-Qali, 18 miles from the town of Rustaq, where 25 crudely made tire-and-wooden rafts arrived loaded with food, tents and building materials from U.N. warehouses in neighboring Tajikistan.

The supplies were transferred to trucks and shipped to quake victims.

Afghanistan’s Taliban Islamic militia has allowed aid convoys to cross front lines to reach the quakeravaged area, which is controlled by a northern-based opposition alliance.

Today’s arrival of a major food shipment, coupled with the first air-drop, marked a giant leap forward in aid efforts previously thwarted by miserable weather.

“The aid pipeline seems to be well and truly gushing now,” Colville said.

Previously, the few relief teams who reached Rustaq were using donkeys and four-wheel drive trucks to carry aid to villagers stranded in the snow-clogged mountains.