Red Cross Blogs

Disaster updates

By Katrina Crew
January 17, 2011 at 4:16 pm

The past several days have seen some terrible weather around the world. Here are updates on how Red Cross societies are helping their communities.

Sri Lanka

Heavy rain and flash floods have affected more than a million people in Sri Lanka. Crops have been inundated and people displaced from their homes.

Sri Lanka Red Cross volunteers have been out in boats and other vehicles, evacuating houses and transporting stranded people to safety. Since December, they’ve helped around 6,000 families through the rainy season by distributing food parcels, hygiene kits, kitchen kits, mosquito nets, blankets and water purification tablets. The Red Cross is calling this “a major disaster”. The IFRC has launched an appeal to assist the Sri Lanka Red Cross to provide water and sanitation and distribute relief to 70,000 people – they have been working since November to provide drinking water, dry rations, non-food items, and set up medical camps for 98,000 people.

Read more on the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ website.

Brazil

At least 645 people have died and over 6,000 have lost their homes due to flooding in Brazil. The Brazilian Red Cross has been providing first aid, transporting survivors away from flooded areas, managing temporary shelters, transporting food, and supporting the Civil Defence and Rio de Janeiro’s government.

Australia

Water levels seem to be receding in Queensland and some people have been able to return home.

The Australian Red Cross has more than 800 staff and volunteers working in 25 locations across Queensland, supporting evacuation centres, recovery centres and information centres. Find out more about how the Red Cross is helping in Australia.

The Australian Red Cross has launched an appeal for donations in partnership with the Victorian government.

How you can help

Right now, the British Red Cross isn’t asking for donations for these specific disasters, but we do have a Disaster Fund that helps us respond quickly to disasters in the UK and around the world.

We don’t send donated goods overseas (find out why not on our website), but items that are donated to our charity shops help fund our full range of life-saving work in the UK and overseas.

Donate to the British Red Cross Disaster Fund.

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Tags: australia, brazil, flood, flooding, floods, Sri Lanka

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 17th, 2011 at 4:16 pm and is filed under Emergencies, International. 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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