Aid teams demand building supplies

Relief teams in Lebanon say many of the damaged buildings can be salvaged and want the United Nations to send more supplies for repairs and to restore electricity and water services.

In Aita al-Shaab, a village just north of the Israeli border, only 100 of the 1,300 houses remain, Jack Redden, the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said. "The rest were either totally destroyed or damaged to the extent that no one could live in them," he said.

He added that UNHCR was providing plastic and metal sheeting and other items "so that people can get their houses back to at least the stage where they can live in them while they continue to repair them".

Seven warehouse tents will be set up around Tyre to store relief goods before they are distributed to the worst-hit areas.

In the southern villages of Markaba and Houla, a UN team found that people did not have water or power, and the roads, fuel stations and health facilities were heavily damaged.Relief supplies arrived in Aita al Shaab on Sunday, and another convoy went to Houla.

An assessment mission to Nabatiyeh reported that about half of the houses were destroyed.

Aid workers found that half of the villages in the Tyre region had damaged water systems. UNICEF and Oxfam were bringing 51 water tanks to shelters for people who were unable to go home.