Press Release SG/SM/7060 - 19990706
DESPITE DEDICATED EFFORTS, NUMBER AND COST OF NATURAL DISASTERS CONTINUE TO RISE

Following are remarks of Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the occasion of the closing of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, delivered at the International Conference Centre of Geneva on 5 July:

As the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) draws to a close we have achieved much, but we continue to confront major challenges. It is a tragic irony that 1998, the penultimate year of the Disaster Reduction Decade, was also a year

Afghanistan
Earthquake response

Oxfam has completed its emergency programme set up in response to the major earthquake which hit remote villages in north-east Afghanistan on 30 May 1998. The three districts affected were Shar-i-Buzurg (Badakhshan), and Chah Ab and Rustaq (Takhar).

At the request of the United Nations, Oxfam became the lead agency for water and sanitation in the area. In Rustaq district, though, Oxfam did not implement a programme as the water problems were not great and Concern was already operational in that district. The

ISLAMABAD -- As Afghanistan braces for winter, the United Nations World Food Programme, several NGOs and survivors of the May 1998 earthquake in the northeastern corner of the country have won a race against time to put the finishing touches on more than 14,000 new, earthquake-resistant homes.
The house-rebuilding project, which began in July, was carried out in the remote, mountainous regions of Badakshan and Taqhar provinces across a 1,750-square kilometre area which were devastated by the 31 May earthquake, the second to hit the area in 1998. Some

An Antonov 32 aircraft chartered by the United Nations World Food Programme, which was flying its final rotations for the earthquake rehabilitation effort in Northeastern Afghanistan, was fired at yesterday as it landed at Faizabad, in Badakshan province.
The pilots working for Skylink aviation refused to fly today, when they were scheduled to make their final three trips from Peshawar, Pakistan to Faizabad with fuel for the single UN-chartered helicopter which remains to service the earthquake operation.

Shots came from one of two villages on

Emergency operation for quake victims almost completed
Eight weeks ago an earthquake shook the very foundations of some 113 villages in northern Afghanistan, resulting in loss of life, injury and destruction. The ICRC, in close cooperation with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (Federation) and the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS), immediately launched an emergency medical and relief operation to come to the survivors' aid. As lead agency in Afghanistan, the ICRC coordinated the activities of the

Background
An earthquake devastated northeast Afghanistan on 30 May 1998. 70% of the villages in this remote area of Badakshan were 80% destroyed; many fruit gardens and crops were ruined; and water sources such as springs and wells were blocked or contaminated by carcasses of dead livestock. Reports estimated that up to 4,500 people may have been killed and a further 2,000-3,000 injured. Heavy rainfall, mountainous terrain, lack of transport and the wholesale destruction of existing roads and paths made access difficult.

MERLIN's Response

MERLIN was the first international NGO

MISSION HIGHLIGHTS
Afghan agriculture recovered in the peaceful areas of the country, but the over-riding feature this year has been heavy snowfalls and low temperatures during winter, and high rainfall in spring.

Flood damage to irrigated crops, together with a high incidence of yellow rust in wheat, have depressed irrigated cereal yields. But heavy rains benefited dryland crops especially in the north and marginal irrigated areas in the south.

Afghanistan has rejected an Israeli shipment of humanitarian aid for survivors of a May earthquake that killed between 3,000 and 5,000 people, a Red Cross offical said on Wednesday.

David Lynch, a spokesman for the Red Cross in Jerusalem, said Afghan authorities had refused to allow 15 tonnes of Israeli aid across the border from Tajikistan.

''There was an objection on the part of the Embassy of the Islamic State of Afghanistan (in Tajikistan)...They said they never asked for any humanitarian aid from Israel,'' Lynch said.

Israel helicoptered the shipment of blankets

Throughout June Oxfam has been working in response to the earthquake in Afghanistan that killed an estimated 5,000 people and affected 100 villages.
An Oxfam team of engineers and nutritionists, including staff based in both Afghanistan and Britain, is at work in the earthquake area. Staff from Oxfam's office in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, arrived quickly after news of the disaster first broke on May 30th.

As part of a co-ordinated response, Oxfam is leading on problems related to water and sanitation. Village water supplies