Global General

UN sending 45 satellite phones to Chile

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-03-02 06:43

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations is sending 45 satellite phones to Chile for officials coordinating earthquake relief efforts and is prepared to send 30 tons of food and other aid if the government gives the green light, the top UN representative for Latin America said Monday.

The UN is also waiting to hear whether the government wants the world body to launch a financial appeal to help the country recover from the massive quake, as it did after the recent earthquake in Haiti, Alicia Barcena, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, told reporters at UN headquarters from her base in the Chilean capital, Santiago.

Chile's government is "well-organized to respond" to the crisis but has appealed to the UN and governments in the region and elsewhere for specific emergency needs, including temporary bridges, field hospitals, satellite phones, electric generators, damage assessment teams, water purification systems, field kitchens and dialysis centers, Barcena said.

She said the UN is sending 25 satellite phones from Geneva and 20 from New York which will arrive in Santiago Tuesday and be immediately given to Chile's Office of Emergencies and Disaster Management.

It is coordinating the response to Saturday's magnitude 8.8 earthquake, which killed more than 700 people, destroyed or badly damaged 1.5 million homes and affected almost 2 million people, she said, quoting official reports.

"The country is confronting an emergency, especially in the southern part of the country," Barcena said. "It's too early to determine the full scope of the destruction since there have been an endless stream of aftershocks."

The UN World Food Program is ready to send 30 tons of food from Ecuador but has not received word from the government to go ahead with the shipment, she said.

In response to the specific government requests, she said, Argentina is sending a field hospital and the Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization are coordinating efforts to provide other hospital, medical and health needs including dialysis equipment.

The United Nations is trying to find out where to obtain the other emergency items, Barcena said.

UN and Red Cross officials in Geneva said details of the destruction in Chile remained sketchy, noting that aftershocks were a continued risk and citing a number of "silent areas" with no contact to the outside world.

The international Red Cross, based in Geneva, said volunteers were providing first aid in areas hardest hit, and that it was appealing for donations within Chile.

It has released $280,000 of its own funds, and is sending aid experts to help recovery efforts, but stressed that local officials were taking the lead - unlike in Haiti, where the January earthquake destroyed large parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, including many government buildings, and killed over 200,000.

The World Health Organization said it expected the death toll to rise in the coming days as communications improve. For survivors, it said access to health services will be a major challenge and noted that indigenous people living in adobe homes were most at risk from heavily damaged infrastructure.

Doctors Without Borders said it sent an exploratory team of health workers to help the Chilean government. They will travel Monday to the Maule region and will focus on areas close to the epicenter of the earthquake, prioritizing rural villages where aid often takes far longer to reach than in cities.