About 30 000 to 50 000 people in Somalia are ”in need of immediate relief assistance” after the country was hit by a tsunami wave at the weekend, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday.
”Initial estimates suggest that 30 000 to 50 000 people are affected and in need of immediate relief,” the statement quoted WFP spokesperson Laura Melo as saying.
The statement sent to French news agency AFP in Nairobi said that the WFP was facing serious difficulties of getting relief food to the population as impassable roads were blocking its attempts to deliver aid to the northern Hafun island, which was battered by surging waves triggered by a mammoth earthquake off Indonesia.
The agency said that ”two trucks carrying 31 tonnes of food aid are presently stuck 60 kilometres outside Hafun (and were) unable to proceed … because the road that would be used was destroyed by the floods.”
At least 40 fishermen were confirmed dead and more than 60 others were still missing in Somalia after their wooden fishing dhows capsized Sunday in the wake of killer waves off the east African coast.
”WFP staff describe a state of total desolation in Hafun. The island’s 4 500 inhabitants seem to have lost all their possessions,” the statement said.
”They are now without shelter, water, food and medicine. Cases of diarrhoea and other diseases are already being reported,” the statement warned, calling the international community to provide urgent assistance.
”Most of the houses in the town have been destroyed. Personal possessions lay scattered around the town. Boats are beached in the middle of the town. Even money is strewn on the ground,” it added.
The quake with its epicentre off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Sunday has killed more than 80 000 people across the Indian Ocean.
At least 114 killed
At least 114 people were killed in Somalia when the tsunami wave struck the Somali Indian Ocean coast at the weekend, says the United Nations.
”Latest figures report that at least 114 people have died, over 100 fishing boats are missing and many more people remain unaccounted for,” Office of the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia said in a statement released in Nairobi.
”Villages in the area have been either fully or partially submerged and livestock and livelihoods lost..,”
”Coastal communities between the (northeastern) island of Hafun in the Bari region and the village of Garacad in Mudug, a 650-kilometre stretch of coastline, were particularly affected,” it added.
The newly created Somali government and authorities in the self-declared, autonomous northeastern region of Puntland appealed for international relief assistance on Tuesday.
There were reports of more displaced people in Bander Beyla, Baargaal and Eyl, it added. OCHA, which was coordinating efforts to assist those affected, said that the most urgent needs included food, medicine, shelter materials, cooking utensils and clothes.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said it was due to start distributing food aid on Wednesday to an estimated 2 000 people in Hafun. Some 31 mt of food was being transported by road from the Gulf of Aden port town of Bosasso to Hafun, says WFP spokesperson, Laura Melo.
However, she added that the road from Bosasso to Hafun was in ”very bad
shape”, making the journey to the affected area slow.
”Hafun is the only place where we know about the situation,” Melo said,
adding that the UN was planning an aerial assessment on Thursday to make an inventory of all the areas affected along Somalia’s coast.
The interim prime minister of Somalia, Ali Muhammad Gedi, told reporters
in Nairobi he would lead a delegation of Somali MPs, government officials
and NGOs to assess the damage caused by the waves ”in the next few days”.
A disaster committee composed of Somali officials was also being formed.
The deputy speaker of Somalia’s transitional federal parliament, Mohammed
Omar Dala, said on Tuesday that nearly 50 people drowned, mainly
fishermen who were out at sea.
Relief agencies said the region most affected by the tsunami in eastern
Africa was the tip of the Horn, particularly in northeast Puntland around
Bandar, Murdayo, Raas Caseyr, Bargal and Hafun.
WFP said it had food stocks in Puntland, which could be used for the
tsunami-generated emergency. A total of 1 000 mt of food, which was
destined for drought and floods victims, was currently available in
Puntland, the agency said.
Assistance to drought and floods victims would continue, but some stocks
could be diverted to assist the tidal wave victims, according to WFP. A
vessel with another 1 300 mt would be dispatched soon from the Kenyan port of Mombassa to Bosasso, it added.
Tanzania, Kenya, Seychelles and Madagascar affected
Sunday’s tsunami waves also slammed into Tanzania, where at least 10
people, mostly children, died, police in the commercial capital, Dar es
Salaam, said.
In Kenya, authorities sealed off the beaches on Monday to prevent people
from exposing themselves to the danger posed by the rushing waters.
Sources said three people died but confirmed one. The beaches were later
reopened.
Damaged infrastructure was also reported in the Indian Ocean islands of
Seychelles and Madagascar. – Sapa-AFP, Irin