Laos gets more emergency aid

4 October 2009

HANOI - MORE emergency aid reached southern Laos on Sunday, aid workers said after Tropical Storm Ketsana left at least 24 people dead last week in one of Asia's poorest nations.

'They've already started going out and helping people, giving out water and food,' said Sally Sakulku, of British-based Health Unlimited, referring to her staff in hardest-hit Attapeu province. 'It's accessible now.'

After Ketsana hit on Wednesday, floodwaters left the rugged region reachable only by helicopter and boat until limited road access opened on Saturday.

Ms Sakulku said her teams expected to reach about 1,000 families on Sunday in Attapeu, which borders Cambodia. Some were still sheltering in schools but others have returned home, she said.

In adjacent Sekong province, also hard-hit, the relief agency CARE said it was delivering kettles to help people boil water, and was mobilising other resources.

'We are supplying medicines to the provincial government so that they are prepared, for example, if it comes to an outbreak of diarrhoea,' said Henry Braun, CARE's director for Laos.

He said more than 15,000 people in the province have been affected and 200 houses confirmed destroyed.

'However, there is still a lot of unknowns surrounding the situation, especially in the remote areas,' he said.

Canned fish and rice from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has also been delivered to southern Laos by the government, WFP said.

Ketsana has brought devastation across Southeast Asia, first killing at least 293 people in the Philippines before striking Vietnam, where 162 died, and Cambodia where it claimed 17 lives. -- AFP

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Source: THE STRAITS TIME