On October 11th, North Caucasus was hit by the most destructive earthquake the region has seen in 30 years. 13 people have been killed as buildings around the epicentre in Chechnya collapsed. Over 100 people have been wounded and dozens hospitalized.
Many of the houses that are still standing after the earthquake are seriously damaged, whilst the hospital in the town of Kurchaloy has been destroyed. The village of Mayrtup, which is home to at least 11,000 people, has been hit the worst. Forecasts are predicting that seismic activity is set to continue in the North Caucasus region.
People queuing at the MSF mobile clinic bus, in the aftermath of the earthquake in Chechnya
Aslan Dolayev/MSF
“There are still a lot of aftershocks. Whilst carrying out assessments we could feel the ground shaking. People are afraid to enter their houses. They have set up tents and beds outside, building fires to keep themselves going through the night”, says Mairbek Abdullayev, a Chechen doctor and MSF mobile clinics manager.
In many areas, MSF was the first agency to arrive and assess people’s needs. Mobile medical teams have provided assistance in the five worst hit locations – Mayrtup, Bashi-Yurt, Lower and Upper Noybera and Oyskhara. In each of these places, MSF teams have pitched medical tents and are providing consultations to those in need.
During the first two days of assistance, 562 medical consultations were carried out and 398 people received counselling. Most patients were suffering from stress-related conditions, such as hypertension, cardio-vascular problems and various psychosomatic disorders. “On the first day, our mobile team conducted 130 consultations in Lower Noybera alone, a village with a population of 3,000 people’, says Mairbek.
MSF are also conducting an assessment to determine the need for non-food items, such as blankets and cooking stoves. The teams will do a thorough evaluation of water supplies in the region, since the initial assessment showed that there was not enough drinking water to meet the population’s need.
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MSF has been working in Russia since the beginning of the 1990s. MSF started providing medical and humanitarian aid to the population of Chechnya since the war in 1994. In post-war Chechnya, MSF runs mobile clinics for internally displaced persons (IDP’s) living in and around the capital Grozny and in neighbouring Ingushetia. MSF also renovated the buildings of the local polyclinic in Grozny and set up a free pharmacy. MSF runs mother-and-child and women’s health programmes and supports a local maternity house. A mental health component is included in most programmes. MSF provides tuberculosis treatment to the entire population of Chechnya. In hospital #9 in Grozny, MSF supports neurosurgery, trauma and intensive care wards and runs a reconstructive surgery programme to help treat wounds inflicted by the fighting.