India quake villages short of aid

Hundreds of thousands rely on aid

Some remote villages in the western Indian state of Gujarat have received no aid, nearly a month after the devastating earthquake there, officials say.

"Thousands of people are having to sleep out in the open with either minimal or no form of protection," said Bob McKerrow, operations manager for the International Federation of Red Cross team in India.

The earthquake that struck Gujarat on 26 January killed at least 19,000 people, injured another 166,000 and made more than a million homeless.

The federation is to increase the number of assessment missions to the stricken state.

Disaster scale not known

"What we still don't know is the outer limit of the disaster area," said Mr McKerrow.

He praised the state government's work in co-ordinating the disaster response, but said the magnitude of the disaster had made comprehensive assessments difficult.

In the district of Abdasa for example, Red Cross teams have found very few villages that have not been damaged and most are in need of help.

Nick Denton of the American Red Cross said: "In some of the villages in Abdasa, people have given up waiting for help to come to them.

"Some people have tried to help themselves and started to clear up the rubble while others have abandoned their villages altogether."

The size of the operation is huge. So far, the Indian Red Cross and the federation say they have distributed 140,000 blankets, tents and tarpaulins to shelter more than 200,000 people.