The United Nations' World Food Program has appealed for $19 million to provide emergency assistance to tens of thousands of people affected by a series of devastating earthquakes and aftershocks that has rocked western Afghanistan. Ana Maria Salhuana, deputy country director of the World Food Program in Afghanistan, said it was helping survivors but it urgently needed more funding because "we are having to take this food from an already severely underfunded program." The group said it was working to provide emergency food assistance to 100,000 people in the region.