KARACHI, Jan 10: People in the metropolis have been donating generously to help survivors of the devastating tsunami that struck 12 Southeast Asian countries on December 26.
Relief collection camps are seen pitched on various thoroughfares by several non-governmental organizations and political parties.
While the government has created the President? Tsunami Relief Fund to collect donations for the disaster victims, the NGOs and political parties have sent their representatives to the affected countries to help provide relief to the victims.
At the relief collection camps across the city announcement are being made seeking maximum possible donations from people in cash and kind. Activists and volunteers have been collecting cash, food, medicines, clothes, woollies, etc.
The government has dispatched some consignments of relief goods to the affected areas and the more are in the pipeline. Some of the NGOs have also sent relief goods and are in the process of sending more such consignments.
Pakistan army on Thursday sent a relief team to the worst-hit state, Indonesia. This was the second batch of the armed forces sent for the purpose. Two navy ships Khyber and Moawin left Karachi for Sri Lanka on Tuesday. The troops will set up a 50-beded hospital in Banda Aceh.
The first task force troops had arrived in Sri Lanka on Tuesday and set up a field hospital there. The relief goods included tents, blankets, foodstuff, and medicines weighing 1,000 tons. The Pakistan Navy Marine Expeditionary Force boarding the ships will extend its help to the local authorities in removing debris and carrying out other relief work.
Apart from PN contribution, the relief goods being shipped to the tsunami-hit countries have been donated by the federal government, Red Cross, Rotary Club, Alamgir Welfare Trust, Neene Enterprises and Pakistan Navy Women Association.
Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGC) has set up tsunami relief centres at its headquarters, as well as regional and zonal offices and customer facilitation centres in Sindh and Balochistan.
According to the SSGC, the organization is collecting donations in the form of bedding, clothes, food supplies and other essential household items. Its staff is also contributing one-day salary to the President? Tsunami Relief Fund. The company has already contributed a sum of Rs1 million to the fund.
The Christian World Church (CWC), from its regional office in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has launched an extensive fund-raising campaign. It has deployed an emergency assistance team in Sri Lanka to join in the efforts by the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka in providing relief to the disaster victims.
While more than one million people have been rendered homeless by the tsunami disaster, thousands of people across the region are still unaccounted for. The organization is establishing a $500 million fund, according to a press release of the CWC.
The Khidmat-i-Khalq Foundation of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, on the directive of the party chief Altaf Hussain, installed 56 relief camps at various places in the city on January 2 to collect funds and relief goods for the Tsunami-hit people.
Such camps have also been established in the interior of Sindh and other parts of the country, said a representative of the KKF. He pointed out that people were donating cash, medicines, edibles, clothes, bed-sheets, blankets, powder milk, rice, wheat, tea, juices, edible oil, soap, etc.
The goods worth millions of rupees would be dispatched to the disaster-hit countries in the days to come, he added. The MQM has contributed 50,000 Sterling Pounds to the relief fund meant for tsunami victims in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Cheques of varying amounts were handed over to officials of the concerned embassies in London.
The Edhi Foundation had sent Faisal Edhi and Rizwan Edhi along with rescue workers and doctors to help carry out relief work in Sri Lanka. The team distributed food among 15,000 victims in Lalmanai area where the Foundation was first to reach, according to its spokesman.
He said that the doctors treated some 900 children in Lalmanai. After their week-long stay in Sri Lanka, the team left for Indonesia where it distributed cooked food to some 10,000 people.
The foundation has sent relief goods worth Rs5.5 million, besides medicines worth Rs7 million. On the request from the government of Sri Lanka, the foundation had sent 100,000 metres of cloth for 10,000 shrouds.
The Al-Khidmat Welfare Society has pitched 23 relief camps across Karachi to collect funds and relief goods for tsunami victims. It had sent the first consignment of relief goods worth Rs1.5 million which including shrouds, bed-sheets, powder milk, foodstuff, and medicines.
The Society? secretary Dr Tabassum Jaffri said that five teams of doctors and paramedics, along with medicines, were being sent to the affected areas where they would provide medical assistance to needy people.
The Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA), in a press release, said that the organization had sent a team of doctors along with relief goods worth $70,000 to Indonesia. The team left for Jakarta on Friday, it added.
