DEC Asia Quake Appeal Passes £15 Million Mark
17 October 2005
More than £15 million has now been pledged to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s (DEC) Asia Quake Appeal. Members of the British public continued to give generously over the weekend, online, by the emergency phone lines and through the post.
However as the weather in the region deteriorates the need for shelter is increasingly urgent and the DEC calls on the public to continue with their generosity.
The most critical challenge is the logistics of delivering shelter that will stand the harsh winter conditions, said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
‘Tents have already become like ‘gold dust’ on the Pakistani open market as the snow starts to fall in villages where not a single house remains standing,’ said Tariq Raza, Emergency Field Coordinator for CAFOD.
‘A shopkeeper told me ‘we can survive by eating grass, but we cannot survive without tents in such freezing temperatures, which usually reach below minus degrees during the snow season’’.
The 13 DEC member agencies are Action Aid, British Red Cross, CAFOD, CARE International UK, Christian Aid, Concern, Help the Aged, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision.
ENDS
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