PANAMA. - An emergency airlift of food aid from the United Nations World Food Programme arrived today in the Nicaraguan coastal town of Bilwi (formerly Puerto Cabezas) for distribution to hungry residents who bore some of the worst of Hurricane Felix's punishing Tuesday landfall.

Preliminary estimates by WFP indicate as many as 60,000 people were directly affected in the northern Nicaraguan region where high winds destroyed or damaged homes and commercial buildings. Despite these losses and the hardship, humanitarian officials were relieved that Hurricane Felix did not cause more damage during its trajectory through Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.

"Hurricane Felix had the potential to create enormous devastation and suffering for millions of people," said WFP Deputy Director Gordana Jerger. "We are extremely fortunate. However, there is still a lot of urgent work to be done in helping those who were affected and we will need immediate financial assistance from our donors who have proven repeatedly that they are prepared to help."

Today's airlift consisted of 4.5 MT of beans, rice, oil, fortified corn-soya blended food and cooking oil, delivered by an airplane belonging to the Nicaraguan Air Force. The food is enough to feed almost 900 people for ten days. Road transport has been halted after a key bridge was washed away by the rain-swollen river. "We are only able to deliver assistance to the affected areas by air, sea or river," said WFP Country Director William Hart.

The airlift marked the second emergency distribution of WFP food in the coastal region since Hurricane Felix struck early Tuesday. An additional 70 MT of WFP food were distributed on Tuesday in Bilwi and Waspam, just hours after Hurricane Felix struck the area.

Also on Tuesday in Honduras, WFP staff in the capital city Tegucigalpa distributed food to thousands of people who had gathered in shelters. Meanwhile, in El Salvador, WFP is still assessing Felix's impact, especially in geographically vulnerable areas.

"Because WFP has food stocks for its long-term projects in the area, we were able to respond with unusual speed," Jerger said. "However, not only will these stocks have to be replenished, we will need international support for our operation in Nicaragua where people require assistance, not just in the short term, but also to rebuild their lives and homes in the coming months."

NOTE TO EDITORS: For interviews from Nicaragua on the impact of Hurricane Felix and humanitarian efforts, please contact Alejandro Lopez-Chicheri at 81-64143-6178.

# # #

WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency: on average, each year, we give food to 90 million poor people to meet their nutritional needs, including 58 million hungry children, in 80 of the world's poorest countries. WFP - We Feed People.

WFP now provides RSS feeds to help journalists keep up with the latest press releases, videos and photos as they are published on WFP.org. For more details see: http://www.wfp.org/english/?n=999.

WFP now has a dedicated ISDN line in Italy for quality two-way interviews with WFP officials.

For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):

Trevor Rowe, WFP/Latin America and the Caribbean, Tel. +507 317-3955, Cel. +507 6674-2601

Alejandro Chicheri, WFP/Latin America and the Caribbean, Cel. +507-6675-0617

Elio Rujano, WFP/Latin America and the Caribbean, Tel: +507 317-3930, Cel +507 6617-9261

Tania Moreno, WFP/El Salvador Public Information; Tel. 503-2263-6144

Brenda Barton, Deputy Director of Communications, WFP/Rome, Tel. +39-06-65132602, Cell. +39-3472582217 (ISDN line available)

Gregory Barrow, WFP/London, Tel.. +44-20-72409001, Cell. +44-7968-008474

Christiane Berthiaume, WFP/Geneva, Tel. +41-22-9178564, Cell. +41-792857304

Cécile Sportis, WFP/Paris, Tel. +33-1-70385330, Cell. +33-6161-68266

Jennifer Parmelee, WFP/Washington, Tel. +1-202-6530010 ext. 1149, Mob. +1-202-4223383

Bettina Luescher, WFP/New York, Tel. +1-212-9635196, Cell. +1-646-8241112, luescher@un.org