(22 Feb 2005)
Kandahar, Kandahar province
1. Various of US soldiers loading Chinook helicopter at Kandahar airport
2. Mid shot Apache helicopter taking off
Khak-e Afghan, Zabul Province
3. Aerial of Zabul province from helicopter
4. Mid shot of villagers in snow waiting to receive aid
5. Mid shot of helicopter landing
6. Wide shot of helicopter landing with US soldiers nearby
7. US soldier with local child on road
8. Villagers waiting for aid
9. Mid shot of aid from Chinook helicopter being unloaded
10. Various of US soldiers and villagers carrying bags of food aid
11. SOUNDBITE: (Pashtu) Mohammed Sadeq, Villager:
12. "We had a lot of difficulties because we had so much snowfall in our village of Khak-e Afghan. "
13. Mid shot of soldier and villager carry food aid
14. Mid shot of villager waiting to receive aid
15. SOUNDBITE: (English) Lt. Col Scott McBride, US Army
"Many have either died, both adults and children from a variety of causes associated with the weather, we are communicating daily, the government is communicating with district leaders and other leaders to ascertain where the need is and that is where we go with this aid."
16. Wide shot of snowy mountains, US soldiers with helicopter landing
STORYLINE:
At least 180 children have died in Afghanistan''s coldest winter in years, the health minister said on Tuesday, amid warnings that the final toll from the sub-zero temperatures and heavy snow could run into the thousands.
The US military as well as the United Nations and aid groups have supported efforts to bring relief to isolated communities.
In Kandahar the US military organised helicopter aid flights to remote villages in Zabul province which have been blighted by the bad weather.
Three military helicopters dropped eight tons of wheat, cooking oil and beans next to a village in Zabul called Khaki Afghan.
The government has yet to give an estimate of nationwide casualties from the freeze that has left many remote regions snowbound, though the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Tuesday that 260 people have died.
In Zabul, a southeastern province haunted by Taliban militants, Gov. Khan Mohammed Husseini told The Associated Press on Monday that 135 people had died, mostly of cold, hunger and disease, but that two of them had been attacked by wolves.
In other parts of Afghanistan, the toll among children alone has risen to 180, almost half of them in the Hindu Kush province of Ghor where scores of villages have been cut off by snow.
Another 29 people have been killed in avalanches this year.
But the Afghan government has described as alarmist forecasts by relief groups that the death toll could top 1,000.
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