OCHA Situation Report
South Asia Earthquake
Logistics Bottlenecks as of 7 December 2005
13 December 2005


Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Current issues
Customs

It is unclear what goods qualify for exemption under the customs waivers issued 
to support the relief effort. This is especially of importance for the import 
of Corrugated Galvanized Iron (CGI) sheeting.

UNJLC is working on clarification of the procedures and of the list of 
goods exempt for duty with the Cabinet Division and the Federal Relief 
Commission.

De-icing equipment

In order to make as much use of helicopter operations as possible, 
de-icing equipment is required to enable the helicopters to fly at 
daybreak.

UNJLC, on behalf of UNHAS/WFP, has approached NATO and the Swiss 
government to provide such equipment. WFP is investigating commercial 
options as well.

Weather

The 90-day 'Winter Plan' foresees a decrease in flying days to 20 days 
per month due to the weather conditions.

Developments

Air/Surface transport

UNJLC collects all cargo requests. Depending on destination, 
consignments are moved by truck up to their final destination or trucked 
to a forward helicopter site. IOM, Atlas and WFP provide surface 
transport. Approved requests for air moves are passed to the Aviation 
Operations Centre (AOC, former Joint Operations Centre) through which 
UNHAS, Pakistani military, NATO and U.S. military assets are tasked.

Requests for air cargo movements are expected to increase. UNHAS is 
predicting requests for up to 6,500 Metric Tonnes (MT) of food and 1,500 
MT of Non-Food Items (NFI) per month. The estimated deterioration of 
roads and the resulting increase in NFI air movement requests have been 
taken into account in these numbers. Currently, the priority split 
food/NFI is fixed at 70%/30%. A prioritisation scheme by valley as 
opposed to an overall priority split is under discussion with the 
Humanitarian Coordinator.

Helicopter operations

Three MI-8's will be added to the UNHAS fleet. One aircraft will enter 
into operations the 24th of December; for the other two, this is yet to 
be determined.

Sling load operations, for which nets are needed, are deemed to be 
highly useful. Currently 20 nets are used, 20 more nets have arrived 5th 
of December and 50 more have been procured. NATO, USAID and DFID have 
been asked for their assistance in obtaining more nets.

Road access

Emergency repairs are expected to not be sufficient to last through the 
winter. In the Neelum Valley, two landslides are reported near Batmang 
and Naseri. Bridge abutments are cracked and freezing could cause 
further deterioration. In the Kagan Valley, rockslides are reported near 
Karai, Paras and Jareed. Traffic is reduced to one-way in various 
locations causing delays.

This Logistics Bottlenecks report is a joint product of UNJLC and OCHA. 
For queries or comments please contact Ingrid van Beuzekom 
(vanbeuzekom@un.org). Sources used are: contact with UNJLC staff, 
ReliefWeb, minutes from cluster meetings and sitreps, Pakistan 
Meteorological Department, press briefings.


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