Period covered: 27 January to 16 February 2004.
- Preliminary Appeal launched on 26 December
2003 for CHF 15,409,300 (USD 12,290,337 or EUR 9,886,505) for 6 months
for 200,000 beneficiaries.
- Revised Appeal launched on 8 January 2004 for CHF 51,913,000 (USD 42,006,534 or EUR 33,119,207) for 6 - 8 months for 210,000 beneficiaries.
Disaster Relief Emergency Funds (DREF) allocated: N/A
The Federation's mission is to improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity. It is the world's largest humanitarian organization and its millions of volunteers are active in over 181 countries. For more information: www.ifrc.org
In Brief
Appeal coverage: 51.2%
Outstanding needs: CHF24,403,608
Operational Summary: On 9 February 2004, the Prince of Wales, in his capacity of the patron of the British Red Cross visited Bam and met earthquake survivors. The prince, accompanied by the British Red Cross chief executive, met with Iranian Red Crescent staff and volunteers and visited the Federation referral hospital and the Red Cross/Red Crescent compound. He expressed concern over the future of the quake victims. The Royal visit brought back Bam into the headlines of international media.
Bam is still very much a place of a disaster.
Despite increasing signs of restoration of daily life in the city, there are still outstanding needs for shelter, food, stoves, blankets, cooling boxes, drinking water, sanitation facilities and health services. Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) and the Federation continue to provide food and non-food assistance to some 217,000 beneficiaries. Demands for health services provided by the Red Cross/Red Crescent referral hospital and basic health clinics are still significant. Health risks that could arise as a consequence of the rising temperatures are being closely monitored. Red Cross water-sanitation ERUs (Emergency Response Units) continue to maintain and improve water and sanitation facilities and services in the Red Cross/Red Crescent compound and the health facilities, around the city and in the tent camps to ensure provision of clean water thus preventing water-borne diseases. With the emergency relief phase gradually winding down, the handover to the IRCS of ERU equipment is underway.
This process goes along with the downsizing in numbers of expatriate delegates. As this is the first major international disaster response operation taking place in Iran, IRCS staff from different departments and at all management levels and sectors has been brought in to support the operation and to use the opportunity to be trained thus reinforcing the disaster management capacity of the National Society. The international affairs department of the IRCS is driving this process in coordination with huge domestic relief and logistics services. The constant staff rotation, however, is impacting the IRCS/Federation counterpart interface for the handover process. Discussions to improve the situation are ongoing with IRCS.
On 21 February, IRCS and the Federation will meet in Tehran to review the operation and consider the options recommended by the Federation/IRCS recovery assessment mission. A revised plan of action will be drawn up to more effectively address the emerging needs of the quake survivors and to consolidate the cooperation and coordination mechanisms for Red Cross/Red Crescent partners in Iran. Donors are requested to provide more un-earmarked funding to implement the rehabilitation components of the appeal.
Background:
A major earthquake registering 6.3 on the Richter scale hit Iran's south-eastern province of Kerman at 05:28 (local time) on 26 December 2003, centred on the ancient city of Bam. According to the latest official estimates, 43,200 people were killed, 30,000 injured and up to 75,6001 left homeless. Some 5,000 children are believed to have lost either of their parents. About 85 percent of the housing and infrastructure have been destroyed.
The same day, the Federation launched a preliminary Emergency Appeal to provide immediate relief and basic assistance to the victims, and to undertake immediate assessments. Within 72 hours a Federation Field Assessment & Coordination Team (FACT) coordinated the deployment of Federation Emergency Response Units (ERUs) providing a field referral hospital, basic health clinics, water and sanitation, logistics and relief that supported the IRCS search and rescue teams who had reached the scene within three hours of the disaster.
On 8 January, 2004 a revised Appeal was launched to provide food, shelter, water and medical services to 210,000 people, help preventing infections and diseases, and address rehabilitation needs.
Operational developments
Although some quake victims are still living in temporary shelters in the vicinity of their destroyed properties, increased numbers of people are moving into the tent camps. After 40-days of traditional mourning period, lives in Bam have gradually returned to some degree of normality with increased traffic and commercial activities on the streets. Thirteen camps have now been set up in Bam and are managed by the IRCS. More camps are planned to be set-up. The government-led Bam Task Force (BTF) has emphasized that the relief and emergency phase of the earthquake is over, the temporary accommodation phase well advanced, and that all quake victims will be accommodated in prefabricated housing by mid April. With the emphasis switching increasingly towards recovery and reconstruction, international NGOs have been requested to provide detailed plans of action, to be submitted at the end of the week (20, February) which should demonstrate capacity to contribute to government's reconstruction efforts and to collaborate and coordinate closely with relevant governmental authorities. As a result of these developments many international NGOs have already left or are preparing to leave Bam.
The Federation is channelling international support pledged through this Appeal, as requested by the Iranian government and the National Society. It will continue to actively support the IRCS in its relief operation and coordinate partner Red Cross/Red Crescent societies to help quake-affected people rebuilt their lives.
Given the scale of devastation by the earthquake, rehabilitation demands enormous and concerted efforts and collaboration among different players. An IRCS/Federation joint recovery assessment team was deployed at the end of January to map out the most appropriate options for the Red Cross/Red Crescent to participate in recovery, reconstruction and disaster mitigation. The findings have underlined the following immediate, mid-term and long-term priorities:
Immediate priorities (in the next two months: February-March):
- Reinforce the existing referral field
hospital, increase water and sanitation services and continue with psychosocial
support services;
- Maintain relief and logistics support
to food and non-food distributions, as appropriate;
- Improve information technology and telecommunication
capacities;
- Consolidate field health services and
where appropriate expand relief health services and establishn "road
relief centres";
- Carry out a practical multidisciplinary disaster preparedness/response mission.
Mid-term priorities (in the next six months: mid 2004):
- Replenish disaster preparedness stocks;
- Participate, should the IRCS take a
role, in the construction of the prefabricated hospital facilities and
construct/rehabilitate damaged and destroyed IRCS's centres/buildings;
- Improve disaster management capacities including risk mapping, rapid assessment, reporting and monitoring; o Initiate water and sanitation training and education.
Longer-term priorities (within 2004):
- Build and activate the orthopaedic service
centre;
- Carry out earthquake preparedness campaign;
- Increase disaster preparedness/warehousing,
and urban search and rescue capacities;
- Work with partners on capturing lessons learnt and share them globally.
These priorities, together with lessons learnt from more than 40 days of operation in Bam and the government's reconstruction plan will be taken into account at the IRCS/Federation meeting scheduled to take place on 21 February in Tehran to plan the next phase of operation. A number of partner national societies have expressed interest and are consolidating their plans of action in support of IRCS rehabilitation efforts in Bam. These include mother-child health, income-generation for rural population, restoring urban and rural water supplies and construction of some health facilities. ECHO funding through EU national societies might be available for some of these initiatives.
The Federation continues to host and actively participate in various coordination meetings with the UN and NGOs in Bam. As the operation stabilizes, coordination meetings for Red Cross/Red Crescent partners in Bam are now taking place three times a week instead of daily. The number of expatriate delegates, which stands currently at 102, will be significantly reduced in the coming weeks as the ERU equipment and health facilities are being gradually handed over to IRCS counterparts. In Tehran, the IRCS/Federation task force meets regularly and provides logistical, administrative and managerial support to the operation. The Federation regional delegation in Amman also provides significant technical support in the areas of health, psychosocial support, disaster management and reporting. Since mid January, the Federation operation in Bam has been reinforced in the areas of human resources, administration, information, water-sanitation/health, IT/telecom and reporting. In the meantime, operational budgets for various sectors are being revised.
While the number of expatriate delegates has being reduced, the management of each component of the Federation support becomes increasingly complex. Integration, staff training and the physical merging of the IRCS and local staff activities including the issue of their accommodation have brought additional challenges. The security situation remains reasonably stable but differences of working style, methodologies and particularly language barrier present daily problems to be solved on the spot. There are concerns that possible re-location of parts of the population to adjacent pre-fabricated housing sites may create problems related to security and enforced control mechanisms. Unauthorized access into the hospital and camp compound increases and a balance between a positive interaction with the population and basic safety and security is a constant challenge at all levels. A noticeable change in weather conditions with the very hot summer days approaching will have a significant impact on the living, working, health and sanitation conditions for Federation, IRCS staff and the vulnerable population.
Footnote:
1 Before the earthquake, the population of Bam city and surrounding villages was estimated at 125,000. Due to relatives coming to stay with families of survivors, the overall number of civilians presently in Bam and surrounding villages is estimated to be approximately 200,000. This number is expected to decrease as those who had been living with their relatives will leave (OCHA Situation Report No. 14). The re-registration process of IRCS demonstrates this trend.
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