- Title: GERMANY: GERMAN RED CROSS SENDS FIELD HOSPITAL TO EARTHQUAKE STRICKEN IRAN
- Date: 31st December 2003
- Summary: (EU) COLOGNE, GERMANY (DECEMBER 29, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. SLV TRANSPORT PLANE ON TARMAC; SLV/MV TRUCKS WITH SUPPLIES BEING UNLOADED (8 SHOTS) 0.48 2. (SOUNDBITE) (German) FREDRIK BIRKENHAMMA, GERMAN RED CROSS WORKER, SAYING "With this mobile unit we could treat about forty thousand patients. We have medicines, we have the ability to help deliver babies, take care of pregnant women, actually these are all every day things. But when you are in a system or a situation where the infrastructure does not exist, then it is desperately needed." 1.12 3. MV/SLV/SCU PALETTES BEING LOADED ONTO TRANSPORT PLANE (8 SHOTS) 2.30 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 15th January 2004 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: COLOGNE, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Reuters ID: LVA3PCO1YBFZQ21969PKEAUKS55Y
- Story Text: German Red Cross sends field hospital to Iran.
The German Red Cross loaded a field hospital into
transport aircraft on Monday (December 29) to be sent to
the German region of Iran later in the day.
The so-called Emergency Response Unit is packaged in
approximately 50 boxes on palettes, and can be constructed
within 36 hours. The unit is designed to support existing
medical facilities and can treat several thousand people.
Aid has been pouring into the region from around the
world, including Iran's arch-foe the United States, to help
deal with what appeared to be the world's most lethal
earthquake in at least 10 years.
State television said 25,000 bodies had been buried so
far while aid workers estimated more than 100,000 people
may have been left homeless. The pre-dawn quake on Friday
also injured about 30,000 people when it flattened about 70
percent of the mostly mud-brick buildings in the ancient
Silk Road city.
"With this mobile unit we could treat about 40,000
patients. We have medicines, we have the ability to help
deliver babies, take care of pregnant women -- actually
these are all everyday things. But when you are in a system
or a situation where this infrastructure does not exist,
then it is desperately needed," said Fredrik Birkenhamma of
the German Red Cross at the Cologne airport.
The quake, which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale,
struck when many people were still asleep in the town, some
1,000 km (600 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran.
Rescue attempts were complicated by fears of
aftershocks, which experts said could be as strong as the
first quake and occur at any time over the next few weeks.
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