A HELSTON-based charity has played a vital role in helping survivors of the devastating earthquake in Iran on Boxing Day.

More than 30,000 people are believed to have died in the massive quake, measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale, which hit the ancient city of Bam in the early hours of Friday morning.

Just days later, vital aid from the Shelterbox Trust, based on the Water-ma-Trout industrial estate in Helston, was being flown in to the city to help some of the thousands of Iranians left homeless by the quake.

Members of the Helston-Lizard Rotary Club, who set up the Shelterbox project three years ago, interrupted their Christmas celebrations and swung into action as soon as news of the disaster filtered through. Within hours of receiving a call for help from the Government department co-ordinating the UK aid effort, Rotary Club president David Cromey and member Eddy Search were driving through the night to London with a consignment of 110 shelter boxes.

Each box contains enough equipment to help keep ten people alive, including a ten-man tent, sleeping bags, cooking utensils, torches, candles, water purification tablets and other life-preserving items.

The boxes were flown into Bam airport on Tuesday, where the aid was distributed by the Iranian Red Crescent.

Former Royal Navy search and rescue diver Tom Henderson, from Breage, who dreamed up the Shelterbox project, said the Rotarians were delighted to have played a part in the aid effort.

"It was really pleasing to be able to respond so swiftly," he said. "Within hours of getting the official nod, everyone was round here loading up the truck and the boxes were on their way.

"That is one of the real strengths of the project. We have the stuff in stock and we have the manpower willing to help out at a moment's notice."

During 2003, shelter boxes, which are a unique form of aid in that they are a complete package helping keep families together, were sent out to help victims of disasters in places including Iraq, Liberia and Uganda.

The Helston project has also expanded overseas, with branches set up in Canada and the US channelling funds into the Cornish enterprise.

Mr Henderson said: "It all shows that what we set out to do we are now achieving. We are only in year three and we are becoming players on the world stage. Helston is the home of what is becoming a major aid organisation and more and more people are recognising that."

The club may be asked to send more aid to Iran and, with stocks running low, the emphasis now is on raising more money to replenish shelter box supplies at the Water-ma-Trout warehouse.

Each complete box costs £460 and organisations and individuals making donations know exactly where the aid they contributed to has been sent. Further information is available at www.shelterbox.org.