Chilmark charity 'monitoring' situation after Afghan earthquake
Serve On have warned of 'complex conditions' on the ground though
A Chilmark based charity say they are ready to deploy to Afghanistan if they're needed, following an earthquake in the east of the country earlier this week.
6.1 magnitude tremors are thought to have killed at least 1,000 people and injured many more.
Local Government sources in Afghanistan suggest they're around 90% of the way through their rescue efforts.
But search and rescue organisation Serve On think it's very quick to be at that stage of the operation already.
Dan Cook from the charity says conditions there will be difficult:
"It is a very serious situation in Afghanistan. Not only the situation prior to an earthquake but sadly a lot of places that we've had to deploy to are already vulnerable.
"It’s an extremely complex situation because we have a pretty poor infrastructure. Not very much expertise in, what's required and the resources. Accessing places in that part of the world, where quite a lot of us have operated with the team, is very difficult especially without many helicopters and time is ticking."
Serve On has told Greatest Hits Radio that they believe it's 'unlikely' that they'll be called out to help, but they stand ready and prepared if they're required.
Dan Cook says the chances are the rescue operation will be kept local:
"Aid agencies reaching remote places in that part of the world will struggle without an earthquake. Or Without people having no shelter with a lot of the roads and mountain passes potentially will have slipped away or been buried. There's a very limited amount of helicopters that operate around effectively around that space.
"No doubt that aid agencies, both the existing ones that work there, and those attempting to enter what is a very difficult and complex space, they're all going to come up against those challenges of physically getting to the place - let alone security permission. Even organisational checks and insurances are very difficult to achieve."
The Chilmark based charity has expertise in this area of search and rescue, having been deployed to the British Virgin Islands and Haiti following earthquakes there, as well as Nepal in 2015.
You can find out more about Serve On and their volunteering opportunities on their website.