UN agencies send relief supplies to help quake victims in Afghanistan

United Nations agencies are rushing food and other relief supplies to Afghans whose homes were destroyed or damaged by two recent earthquakes in the country's west and southeast.

Working with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), UN relief staff have distributed food, water, tents and bed sheets to the hundreds of people now homeless or without adequate shelter because of the quakes, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported today.

According to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), two people were killed, 40 people were injured and hundreds of homes were destroyed when an earthquake struck three villages in Paktia province in the country's southeast on 18 July.

At least 150 houses were damaged or destroyed in one village in the western province of Herat when it was hit by a quake on 14 July. No casualties were reported there.

OCHA said two assessment units, which comprise staff from UN agencies, NGOs, the Afghan Government and the provincial reconstruction teams, were in Paktia and Herat to determine what is needed to help the villages recover.