UN seeks $77m aid for 874,000 quake survivors

Rome: The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) appealed on Friday for $77 million to provide food rations and hot meals for 874,000 people affected by the deadly earthquake in Syria and Turkey.

The number in need of aid "includes 284,000 newly displaced people in Syria and 590,000 people in Turkey, which includes 45,000 refugees and 545,000 internally displaced people", the Rome-based organisation said in a statement.

The death toll from Monday's devastating earthquake has passed 22,000, making it the region's worst earthquake in nearly a century.

The WFP said it had delivered food assistance to 115,000 people in Turkey and Syria in the past four days.

"We're providing mainly hot meals, ready-to-eat food rations and family food packages -- things that require no cooking facilities and can be consumed immediately," said Corinne Fleischer, the WFP's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

"For the thousands of people affected by the earthquakes, food is one of the top needs right now and our priority is to get it to the people who need it fast."

Getting aid into conflict-ravaged Syria has been particularly difficult, but the WFP said it had reached a total of 43,000 people there.

Thanks to stocks already inside the country, it said it had enough ready-to-eat rations there for 100,000 people, and other rations, which require cooking facilities, for 1.4 million people for one month.

"Northwest Syria, where 90 per cent of the population depends on humanitarian assistance, is a big concern. We have reached the people there, but we need to replenish our stocks," Fleischer told reporters.

Following the Royal orders of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, a Royal Air Force of Oman flight with relief supplies for earthquake victims reached Syria. Another RAFO flight transported a team of the Civil Defence and Ambulance Authority to Turkey for search and rescue operations.

"We are running out of stocks and we need access to bring new stocks in. The border crossing is open now, but we need to get new border crossings open."

Currently, there is only one open crossing, at Bab al-Hawa, between Turkey and the opposition-held northwest Syria. It was shut briefly after Monday's massive earthquake and aftershocks, but reopened on Thursday.

The International Organization for Migration said that 14 trucks carrying humanitarian aid, including electric heaters, tents, blankets, had crossed into northern Syria from Turkey on Friday.

Six trucks carrying UN aid made it across the border on Thursday.

Fleischer stressed that opening a second border crossing was essential to getting aid to northwest Syria.

"We need the second opening because of the delay of the transport to the damaged roads," she said. "We were able to manage with this in the circumstances before the quake, now we are not anymore. We need both crossings to be open."

A Turkish official said on Friday that Ankara is discussing re-opening a border crossing into Syrian government territory and also looking at opening another into Syria's opposition-held Idlib region. — Agencies