UK Team leader Lasse Petersen, said: “The scale of disaster warrants substantially bigger international response. We hardly see signs of much western aid and have yet to bump into another western aid worker. It is absolutely an appalling tragedy to see a disaster of this magnitude and barely a sign of aid.”
The volunteers are members of a ShelterBox Response Team – sent to Peru by the disaster relief agency ShelterBox, in response to requests by the Peruvian business and professional organization, the Rotary Club of Ica. A vast area of devastation surrounds the cities of Ica, Pisco and Chincha, south of the nation’s capital of Lima. Estimated total of destroyed homes in these cities exceeds 80,000, but outlying areas are yet to be heard from. A badly damaged infrastructure, including phone networks and damaged highways, have isolated some rural mountain communities since the disaster and has greatly hampered general relief efforts throughout the affected region.
Wayne Robinson, a US member of the ShelterBox team from reports “Numerous homes just sunk down into the soft sandy ground as walls and ceilings crumbled. There has been request by Peru officials who say that they could use and additional 40,000 tents”.
ShelterBox – which is supported by Rotary clubs across the US and Canada, as well as several other countries – specializes in providing emergency accommodation and other survival equipment to disaster survivors. The aid is delivered in pre-packaged kits – the ‘ShelterBox’ – each designed to help a family of 10 survive for at least six months.
In addition to sending an initial shipment of shelter tents and supplies for 2000 earthquake survivors in Peru, the charity has also arranged delivery for a shipment of Boxes to Nicaragua by the Dutch Navy for recent Hurricane Felix victims. Need assessment is underway for the Indonesia earthquake as well. Such multiple simultaneous destination deployments over the last two months has strained inventory levels, causing the organization to make a special appeal for additional Box sponsors.
ShelterBox founder Tom Henderson says “We are very stretched financially with our ongoing work in Nepal, Swaziland, Pakistan, Somaliland and request for help in North Korea – we have put over 1400 boxes into the field in the past 6 weeks !!
The combination of its rapidly responding response teams and a globally affiliated network of service clubs are major factors in the organization’s effectiveness. ShelterBox has sheltered more than 500,000 people in its seven year history.
A expressed commitment to sending a second team and the additionally requested Boxes into Peru depend largely on response to a general US appeal. Complete ShelterBoxes can be sponsored for $1000. Partial donations are also accepted to fund multi-donor Boxes. All donations over $200 are provided the ability to track a donor’s specific Box and its final disaster destination. Donations can be made online at
www.shelterboxusa.org .
