PAKISTAN / FLOOD FOOD AID

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) launches a major airlift, using helicopters to boost its ongoing relief operation and bring desperately needed food to people cut off by the devastating floods in northern Pakistan. WFP

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:01:58
• Production Date: 6 August 2010
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME - WFP
• Subject Topical: NUTRITION; DISASTER PREVENTION; DISASTER PREPAREDNESS; DISASTER RELIEF; HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
• Geographic Subject: PAKISTAN
• MAMS Id: U100806a

Description

STORY: PAKISTAN / FLOODS
TRT: 1.58
SOURCE: WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME (WFP)
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 5, 4 AUGUST KALAM VALLEY, MIAN GUJA, RING ROAD, PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN / ROME

Shotlist

5 AUGUST 2010, KALAM VALLEY, PAKISTAN

1. Med shot, soldier sitting in an open helicopter
2. Various shots, bags of aid inside helicopter
3. Various shots, aerial view from the helicopter
4. Various shots, Pakistani army unloading WFP food on the ground
5. Various shots, people queuing for airlift

5 AUGUST 2010, ROME, ITALY

6. SOUNDBITE (English) Amir Abdulla, Deputy Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP):
“The floods in Pakistan have been devastating. They have devastated the infrastructure. Roads have been washed away, bridges have been washed away. To reach the people who are in great need of live saving assistance at this time, food, medical, shelter, the needs are huge. To get there the World Food Programme and our partners are using every means possible. We have started a helicopter airlift to people who are stranded. We are also using on the ground support; people are using mules people are using carts. Whatever we can find to move food and any other live support assistance we will do so.”

4 AUGUST 2010, MIAN GUJA, PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN

7. Various shots, food distribution

4 AUGUST 2010, RING ROAD PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN

8. Various shots, food distribution

Storyline

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) launched a major airlift today using helicopters to boost its ongoing relief operation and bring desperately needed food to people cut off by the devastating floods in northern Pakistan.

The Pakistan government has offered WFP the use of six helicopters to transport food to tens of thousands of hungry and desperate people in isolated communities across the Swat Valley.

A WFP team has been in the Swat Valley identifying safe locations for the helicopters to land. WFP and its international and national NGO partners will carry out distributions of ready-to-eat foods for infants and young children, high energy biscuits and wheat flour, to WFP-identified beneficiaries.

The first three missions to the town of Kalam took place on Thursday morning (5 August), carrying a total of seven metric tons of food, sufficient to feed two thousand five hundred people for one week.

Amir Abdulla, WFP’s Deputy Executive Directorin Rome said that the floods in Pakistan had devastated the infrastructure, washing away roads and bridges.

WFP began food distributions on Sunday (1 August) in the worst-affected areas of Peshawar, Mardan, Charsadda and Nowshera. By Thursday evening, they provided rations for 236,880 people, with 2,906 metric tons of food supplies.

WFP is currently conducting food needs assessments in five of the worst-hit areas, and will move into additional areas as they become accessible. First indications are that around 1.8 million people across the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province are in need of food assistance.