Red Cross Blogs

Responding to disasters in Asia-Pacific

By Katrina Crew
September 30, 2009 at 10:44 am

If you’ve turned on the news in the last few days, you’ll know it’s been a tragic week for many thousands of people in the Philippines, Vietnam and Samoa.

It all started this weekend, when Typhoon Ketsana hit the Philippines and left devastating floods in its wake. At least 240 people died and around 1.8 million were affected.

Yesterday the typhoon headed west and hit Vietnam. It’s not clear yet what the damage is like there, but Viet Nam Red Cross volunteers did manage to help evacuate more than 160,000 people before the typhoon struck.

We launched the Philippines Floods Appeal yesterday to raise money to support the relief efforts in these countries.

Now there’s been an earthquake off the Samoan Islands which triggered a tsunami, killing many people and destroying homes and livelihoods.

The Red Cross is working round the clock in all those places to help the survivors.

In the Philippines, volunteers are carrying out search and rescue operations. They are also providing safe shelter, hot meals and blankets for survivors.

In Vietnam, their early action helped save thousands of lives.

The Samoa Red Cross responded immediately after the earthquake, with 135 of its trained volunteers providing early warnings to those in coastal settlements to stay clear of beaches, supporting life saving evacuation efforts in and around Apia, and opening five temporary shelter sites. They’re now distributing clean water, first aid supplies, tarpaulins and other relief.

Other Red Cross National Societies, like the New Zealand Red Cross, are supporting the efforts by sending disaster response experts and relief supplies.

Find out more about how the Red Cross is helping across all these countries. And please, consider giving what you can to our Philippines Floods Appeal so we can continue helping families who have lost everything.

Image © Reuters/Erik de Castro/courtesy www.alertnet.org

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Tags: disaster, disaster response, earthquake, floods, Philippines, Samoa, tsunami, Typhoon Ketsana, Vietnam

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 10:44 am and is filed under Emergencies, Fundraising and events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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