Additional Mercy Corps Supplies, Staff Arrive in Iran Quake Area

Mercy Corps workers put together tents for a temporary camp that will house hundreds of families left homeless by the quake. Photo courtesy: Peace Winds Japan

Mercy Corps staff members at the scene of the destructive earthquake in southeastern Iran are continuing to provide emergency assistance to families left homeless by Friday's disaster.

A shipment of 12,000 winter blankets is expected to reach Bam in the next day, as well as 100 more family-size tents. The supplies are in addition to an initial shipment of 1,300 blankets, 1,000 space heaters, 990 liters of drinking water and 500 tents that Mercy Corps trucked into Bam over the weekend.

Mercy Corps is working closely with its international partner Peace Winds Japan and the United Nations agencies to distribute the supplies and to establish a temporary tent camp for up to 500 families.

Two members of the Mercy Corps Global Emergency Operations (GEO) team arrived in Bam today and are coordinating relief efforts with the UN agencies and local officials. The GEO team members have years of experience working in crisis situations, most recently coordinating Mercy Corps' humanitarian relief responses following the conflict in Liberia.

Mercy Corps workers and colleague agencies in Bam report a chaotic scene with families living in the open exposed to the winter elements cut off from electricity and heat. Aid workers are fearful of the potential for an outbreak of infectious diseases. Two of the city's main hospitals were destroyed by the 6.6-magnitude quake and an estimated 70 percent of houses have been leveled.

Local officials are fearful that the death toll from the quake could rise to more than 50,000, making it one of the most devastating natural disasters of modern times.