Additional United Nations Aid Delivered to Earthquake Victims in China

BEIJING, June 4 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- While planning mid- to long-term rehabilitation and reconstruction, the United Nations is sustaining efforts to meet immediate needs of the victims of the devastating earthquake that struck China’s Sichuan province.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has deployed a Regional Advisor for Mental Health to consult with local authorities and professionals on psychosocial services in the affected areas. WHO is also coordinating the delivery of health supplies and water purification equipment donated by the Norwegian Government. This donation totals over USD 1.3 million. WHO health emergency kits that will provide essential medicines to treat 120,000 people for one month arrived in Sichuan’s capital, Chengdu last Friday.

Additional UN Children Fund (UNICEF) supplies are their way to the affected areas including 100 mobile toilets as well as 50,000 sets of clothing for boys and girls. The previous UNICEF emergency relief shipment containing 86 tons of health and nutritional supplies for children and pregnant women arrived in Sichuan last week.

The World Food Programme (WFP) announced that a further 201 metric tons of rice and vegetable oil arrived Mianyang city today for immediate distribution to affected people, bringing the total amount of food dispatched by WFP to 383 metric tons. Additional wheat flour will to arrive in the coming days.

A WFP team assisted in the delivery of instant noodles in Jiangyou and Anxian County. On 29 May, Liu Mei, a WFP program officer sent to the quake zone to assist in the distribution of WFP’s relief food stated that:" food is not only a necessity of life, it’s also therapeutic for quake-affected people. It is part of WFP’s work to help government reconstruct the food system after natural disaster."

Additional UN Population Fund (UNFPA) reproductive health supplies will arrive in Chengdu on 5 June. These supplies are aimed at ensuring maximum coverage of the affected population and will help ensure mothers can safely deliver their babies, treat sexually transmitted infections and perform blood transfusion. A UNFPA team will arrive in Chengdu on Thursday to facilitate the distribution of these medical supplies.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) announced that, in addition to 30,000 quilts and 10,000 emergency flash lights that are being distributed, a further 450 tents have arrived in Sichuan. Moreover, a UNDP expert has arrived in Beijing to work on mid- to long-term rehabilitation and reconstruction plans with the International Labour Organization.

In addition to the 11,000 tents that have been distributed last week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will dispatch 4,000 tents over the coming two weeks to quake-affected areas bringing the total number to 15,000.

State media report that the official death toll has risen to 69,016 nationwide as of 1 June, while 373,573 people were injured and 18,627 people are still missing. An estimated 5 million homes have been destroyed and 15.6 million others have been partially damaged. The quake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale, struck south-western China on Monday 12 May at 2:28 p.m. local time.