The UAE's Red Crescent Society (RCS) will dispatch Wednesday an aircraft with 40 tons of relief supplies to aid Algeria’s flood victims.
The catastrophe, which was centered mainly in the capital Algiers, killed at least 579 people and injured 350, while leaving hundreds missing.
Officials at the Algerian Territorial Development Ministry have been quoted as saying that this kind of disaster has not been seen in 39 years.
Sanaa Darwish Al Kutbi, the secretary general of the RCS, was quoted by the offical UAE news agency (WAM) as saying that “the relief material will include tents, blankets and foodstuffs.”
A delegation from the society will be on board the plane to assess the needs and damage in the wake of the floods.
President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi's crown prince, ordered a quick dispatch of supplies to the affected areas in Algeria.
WAM said that Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed al Nahyan, minister of state for foreign affairs and the chairman of the RCS, was supervising the relief efforts. He earlier said that the RCS team would also assess the needs of the people. Meanwhile, Algerian Ambassador to the UAE Abdul Hamid Bouzahir, in a meeting at RCS headquarters with Saleh Mohammed Al Mualla, deputy secretary general for foreign affairs, praised President Sheikh Zayed's initiative to provide urgent assistance to the flood victims and thanked the UAE for its humanitarian gesture.
Algeria has declared three days of national mourning starting Tuesday for the victims of the worst flooding ever.
Algeria's worst natural disaster since winning independence from France in 1962 was in 1981, when an earthquake killed about 1,500 people – Albawaba.com
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