- Title: FRANCE: RESCUE WORKERS DEPART FOR EARTHQUAKE-STRICKEN EL SALVADOR
- Date: 17th January 2001
- Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (JANUARY 15, 2001) (REUTERS) 1. SLV AIRPLANE TO CARRY AID TAXIING/ MV SECURITY (2 SHOTS) 0.09 2. MV FRENCH AID TEAM GETTING READY TO FLY OUT TO EL SALVADOR; GERMAN AID TEAM GETTING READY TO FLY OUT TO EL SALVADOR; SCU BADGE OF GERMAN SEARCH AND RESCUE TEAM; RESCUERS PREPARING BAGGAGE (6 SHOTS) 0.29 3. SCU FRENCH AND GERMAN AID TEAMS TALKING TO EACH OTHER (3 SHOTS) 0.46 4. MV FRENCH AID TEAM 0.49 5. SOUNDBITE (French) LIEUTENANT COLONEL STEPHAN COURA, LEADER OF THE FRENCH AID TEAM: "We have the equipment to provide and treat water. We also have medical supplies." 1.06 6. MV GERMAN AID TEAM 1.10 7. SOUNDBITE (English) WOLFGANG LUTTERBEY LEADER OF GERMAN AID TEAM "We are going to El Salvador with a team from France. We work together and our part is to get water for drinking and organise lighting so that we have electrical equipment." 8. SLV AIRPLANE BEING LOADED WITH EQUIPMENT 1.30 9. SLV PLANE ON TARMAC; MV/SCU EQUIPMENT BEING LOADED ONTO PLANE; SLV GERMAN TEAM BOARDING PLANE; FRENCH TEAM BOARDING PLANE; SLV PLANE DEPARTURE (21 SHOTS) 3.44 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 1st February 2001 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PARIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Reuters ID: LVA7F4ZPDOUKGVVI9WX7DRK2IHIS
- Story Text: France began sending rescue workers and emergency
supplies to earthquake-hit El Salvador.
A French DC10 aircraft with around 80 French and German
relief workers on board left for El Salvador late on Monday
(15 January).
The plane is carrying equipment to set up three field
hospitals and four water purification units as well as tents,
camp beds and other emergency supplies, according to French
Cooperation Minister Charles Josselin.
French President Jacques Chirac had offered on Sunday (14
January) to help El Salvador after a strong earthquake shook
Central America and southern Mexico leaving more than 400 dead
and hundreds missing.
France is ready to provide a helpful contribution to the
Salvadorian rescue efforts, Chirac wrote in a letter to El
Salvador President Francisco Flores.
Salvadorian rescue teams have been working around the
clock searching for survivors under the piles of rubble in the
devastated neighbourhoods in and around the capital of San
Salvador. Their work was hampered by up to 500 aftershocks,
some of them powerful, which created further panic among
survivors.
Hopes were fading fast of finding many more people alive
under the rubble of the 7.6-magnitude quake which killed at
least 403 people, injured 779 and left 1,200 missing,
according to El Salvador's National Emergency Committee.
The quakes epicenter was about 65 miles (105 km) southeast
of San Salvador, off the Pacific coast, according to the U.S.
Geological Survey. It was felt across El Salvador, Guatemala,
Nicaragua and Honduras and as far north as Mexico City.
At least 1,000 people died in a 1986 earthquake in El
Salvador, a country slightly smaller than Massachusetts, and
witnesses said this quake has rivalled the 1986 disaster in
breadth and violence.
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