• Piecing together a fractured Afghanistan one limb at a time

    Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

    Ehsamullah, 30, left, who lost his leg after being shot with an AK-47 and Hassibullah, 30, right, who lost his after stepping on a mine, practice walking with their prosthetic limbs at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) orthopedic center on Nov. 20 in Kabul.

    Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

    Afghan National Army commando, Khairuddin Sultan, 21, is helped up by his friend Ala Mohamed who joined the army with him 18 months ago, as an orthopedic specialist molds a cast for his prosthetic legs on Nov. 19. Khairuddin, a double amputee, lost his legs when an IED exploded during a joint operation against the Taliban with U.S. special forces. The IED exploded while he was using a mine detector, sending shrapnel into his outstretched hand and blowing up his legs.

    Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

    Orthopedic components hang on a wall in a workshop at the ICRC orthopedic center on Nov. 19 in Kabul.

    The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) rehabilitation center works to educate and rehabilitate land-mine victims and those with limb related deformities in Kabul, Afghanistan. The center helps its patients transition back into society and assists them in finding employment by offering micro-credit financing, home schooling and vocational training. The clinic itself is unique in that all of the workers are handicapped. The Kabul center has registered over 57,000 patients, with more than 114,000 registered country-wide in all of their centers since its inception 25 years ago.

    -- Getty Images

    Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

    Bismillah Gul, 12, suffering from poliomyelitis, is helped by his father Masta Gul, after having traveled from Khost province to get treatment on Nov. 19 in Kabul.

    Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

    Khairullah, 10, watches as his brother Zainullah, 18, has a mold cast for a prosthetic arm on Nov. 20 in Kabul. Zainullah, a brick worker, lost his hand six months ago, shaping a brick from mud that contained a mine.

    Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

    An orthopedic technician works on a prosthetic arm on Nov. 20 in Kabul, Afghanistan.

    Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

    An orthopedic specialist checks the mobility of new prosthetic limbs being fitted on a patient on Nov. 20 in Kabul.

    Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

    An orthopedic specialist fits a new prosthetic limb onto a patient on Nov. 20 in Kabul.

    Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

    An orthopedic technician walks past prosthetic limbs being stored for patients on Nov. 20 in Kabul, Afghanistan.

    Related content:

    Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

    Aref Karimi / AFP - Getty Images

    More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

    Launch slideshow

  • Tom Pennington / Getty Images

    Jacorn Golston plays with a toy in the sleeping area of a Red Cross Shelter on May 2 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Alabama, the hardest-hit of six states, is reported to have been battered with at least an EF-4 rated tornado with the death toll across the South rising to over 300 as a result of the storms.)

    Eye clinics, federal aid all part of Alabama relief

    By Rich Shulman

    Life after the tornado goes on in a Red Cross Shelter in Tuscaloosa. Full story.

  • Taking shelter: Humanitarian crisis in quake-hit Japan

    Damir Sagolj / Reuters

    Elderly people warm themselves with blankets at a Japanese Red Cross hospital after being evacuated from the area hit by tsunami in Ishinomaki on Sunday, March 13. Japan faced a growing humanitarian crisis on Sunday after its devastating earthquake and tsunami left millions of people without water, electricity, homes or heat.

    Damir Sagolj / Reuters

    People are given first aid at a Japanese Red Cross hospital on Sunday, after being evacuated from the area hit by tsunami in Ishinomaki.

    Kim Kyung-hoon / Reuters

    An evacuee who was injured during the earthquake and tsunami, at the Red Cross hospital in Ishinomaki on Monday.

    Kyodo News via AP

    A "HELP" sign is written on the ground of Ohara Primary School near a sea coast covered with the rubble in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan, on Monday, March 14, three days after a massive earthquake and the ensuing tsunami hit Japan's east coast.

    By Elena Grothe

    Reuters reports:

    Millions of people in Japan's devastated northeast were spending a fourth night without water, food or heating in near-freezing temperatures, as tens of thousands of rescue workers struggled to reach them.

    As bodies washed up on the coast, injured survivors, children and elderly crammed into makeshift shelters, often without medicine. By Monday, 550,000 people had been evacuated after the earthquake and tsunami that killed at least 10,000.

    The humanitarian crisis was unfolding on multiple fronts -- from a sudden rise in newly orphaned children to shortages of water, food, fuel and electricity to overflowing toilets in overwhelmed shelters and erratic care of traumatized survivors.

    "It is the elderly who have been hit the hardest," said Patrick Fuller of the International Federation of Red Cross, in a memo written from Ishinomaki, one of several coastal cities brutalized by the swirling wall of waves.

    "The tsunami engulfed half the town and many lie shivering uncontrollably under blankets. They are suffering from hypothermia having been stranded in their homes without water or electricity."