IRIN
PAKISTAN: Quake helicopter service returns in November
5 October 2006


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United 
Nations]

ISLAMABAD, 5 October (IRIN) - The United Nations Humanitarian Air 
Service (UNHAS) in Pakistan is gearing up to mobilise its helicopter 
operations for the winter months by the start of November. It will carry 
food and non-food items across the earthquake-affected areas as poor 
weather makes access increasingly difficult, officials said on Thursday.

UNHAS, a non-profit UN service provider under the stewardship of the 
World Food Programme (WFP) would run at least four helicopters during 
its four-month winter operation from November to February 2007.

"At the moment, the operational details are being finalised. Also, we 
have only approximately US $3 million available for the operation, while 
the cost for [those] months is reaching $4.5 million," Amjad Jamal, a 
WFP spokesman, said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The helicopters will mainly be used to pre-position food in remote, 
hilly areas that will soon be cut off as the winter closes in.

Launched just two days after last October's massive 7.6-magnitude 
earthquake, which left more than 75,000 people dead and rendered over 
3.5 million homeless across northern Pakistan, the service provided a 
vital source of relief supplies for many remote communities.

During the eight month-long operation that concluding at the end of May, 
UNHAS employed 24 helicopters in total, including eight from the United 
States and NATO forces.

In addition to vital food and non-food assistance amounting to some 
28,000 mt, the UNHAS helicopter service was instrumental in ferrying aid 
workers to the field and returning with quake survivors in need of 
medical evacuation. At the height of the disaster, the helicopter 
service was moving up to 420 mt of goods a day.

The United States has also announced that it will bring US army's CH-47 
Chinook heavy lift helicopters back into operation next week to help 
deliver reconstruction materials to remote parts of the Allai and Khagan 
Valleys in the country's North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

At the height of disaster relief operations during last winter, the 
Pentagon provided 21 CH-47s, transporting some 14,000 mt of relief 
supplies and evacuating more than 3,000 casualties from the 
quake-affected region.


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