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In December 2005 we organized, with the help of Wood Road School and it's caring Principal Mr. Scott Rocco, staff, students, and parents, a shipment of one twenty foot cargo container from Hillsborough, NJ to the Kashmir area of Pakistan. The shipment contained clothing, blankets, and other materials. The earthquake known as the South Asia earthquake or the Great Pakistan earthquake of 2005, was a major earthquake. The Pakistani government's official death toll was 73,276, while officials say nearly 1,400 people died in Indian-administered Kashmir and fourteen people in Afghanistan. As a result of this earthquake hundreds of thousands of people became homeless and food and shelter in those remote parts were simply unavailable. We shipped our container to the port of Karachi, where a local charitable organization cleared the shipment through customs and trucked the container to the affected area and the goods were distributed to locals. We wished we could have shipped much more but we simply did not have the means to do so. Fortunately in the midst of the disaster, Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FOCUS), an agency affiliated with the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) responded by mobilizing specialized staff, volunteers and resources. FOCUS conducted search and rescue operations and distributed essential relief items to tens of thousands of families in the affected areas of Islamabad, Muzzafarabad and other remote regions of the country. As one of the few local emergency relief agencies with a dedicated search and rescue team, FOCUS collaborated with various other international rescue teams including those from RAPID-UK and Russia, to engage in search and rescue operations. To assist in the operations, FOCUS was able to bring in four AKDN helicopters which made numerous trips into the affected area, carrying relief items including staple foods such as oil, lentils and rice, as well as tents, blankets and medical supplies which were distributed to thousands in need. On their return journeys to Islamabad, the helicopters carried survivors requiring urgent medical assistance. Other agencies of the Aga Khan Development Network, including the Aga Khan Health Services and the Aga Khan University Hospital, provided teams of doctors to provide emergency medical assistance to survivors.
International Disaster Relief charity ShelterBox has taken the lead in alleviating the plight of the 70,000 people left homeless by the late October earthquakes in the Balochistan region of Pakistan by providing more shelter than any other British charity. ShelterBox is also providing 50 school tents, enabling 2,500 children to resume classes.
ShelterBox has so far erected 1,000 relief tents, giving shelter to 10,000 people in and around the town of Ziarat, one of the worst affected areas. Another 500 tents will be erected by mid-December. "With night time temperatures plummeting, speed has been essential, and we have worked hard to get as many tents up as soon as we can," says ShelterBox team leader Mark Pearson. "In all, ShelterBox will be giving shelter to 15,000 of the 70,000 people who have lost their homes. That's 20% of all the victims and is the biggest single contribution by a independent charity involved in the scramble to give these people a roof over their head before the onset of winter."
ShelterBox is also providing 50 hard-wearing school tents and schooling equipment to villages where the school has been destroyed. "We are giving the means for some form of teaching to resume for 2,500 children," says Toby Ash, ShelterBox team member. "Many of the children are very traumatised by what has happened. Giving them a place for recreation and learning gives them a return to some form of routine and normality which they crave."
In addition to the tents and school kits, ShelterBox has provided 10,000 victims with blankets, water carriers, water purification tablets, cooking utensils and a comprehensive tool kit - all packed in Shelterbox's trademark green box. "This equipment has provided a lifeline to many people in this area," says Pearson. "Most houses were completed destroyed, including most household possessions. The tool kit and the utensils have given people the means to start to rebuild their lives." Hats and scarves for children were included in 1,000 boxes to help them cope with nightime temperatures that can fall to as low as -20c.
The Balochistan earthquake struck on 29 October killing 300 people. A three man ShelterBox response team was in the area six days later and the first tents, which had been sent out from the UK, were set up on 7 November. A second team is currently in the disaster area co-ordinating the distribution of school tents and checking on the distribution of the relief tents. Both teams have been assisted by the local Quetta Rotary club. "The Rotarians have giving us invaluable assistance and allowed us to get up and running on the ground very quickly," says Ash.
Local Rotarians have accompanied the ShelterBox teams on visits to the disaster area, allowing to ShelterBox to talk directly to with locals to assess their conditions and to see how the aid has been received. "We travelled to some very remote villages and it was fantastic to see our tents up and being used as homes," says Ash. "I will never forget the moment when a small boy ran over to me and shouted 'The only good tents are the green ones' pointing to our ones on the barren hillside."
In November 2008 Arm's Reach purchased three kits from ShelterBox. Our boxes were flown from England to Pakistan and were trucked to the regions effected by the earthquake and given to the locals in need of shelter and aid. The shelterbox response teams supervised the delivery and installation of the shelter tents and tools and as a result the shelterboxes we sent will shelter up to 30 people for six months.
Please refer to this website for more information on shelter boxes: www.shelterboxusa.org.
1000 ShelterBoxes were sent to Pakistan after an earthquake
displaced tens of thousands of people. More aid will follow now that funds
have come in following our appeal.
These recent pictures were taken by
members of the ShelterBox response team in Pakistan: |
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