KPLU Local News
(2010-08-27)
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Sixteen-year-old Rasalat Khan is a member of one of the 161 families who received emergency food and tool kits from Mercy Corps.
Courtesy Raheel Ayaz/Mercy Corps.
"We're seeing mud houses completely washed away, people are living along the roadsides, on their rooftops," says World Vision spokesperson Amy Parodi. "They're seeking refuge on hillsides, trying to get away from the flooding."
World Vision, which is headquartered in Federal Way, is providing food, water, medical clinics, and hygiene and cooking kits to flood victims.
Teams from Portland-based Mercy Corp have set up mobile health units, which move every few days to supply displaced people with essentials like soap and shampoo. Mercy Corps's Joy Portella says her organization also transports the seriously ill to nearby hospitals.
"You see a lot of people with gastrointestinal problems, upper respiratory infections, skin diseases all of which are due usually to people consuming water that's not clean," Portella says.
Mercy Corps has raised over $1 million toward the relief effort. That might sound like a lot, but it's a fraction of what the agency raised for the Haiti earthquake and the Indian Ocean tsunami.
Portella says the floods have caused more damage than those disasters, but the death toll is much lower. That's part of the reason she says fundraising is lagging.
"We find traditionally that floods, kind of creeping disasters, are more difficult to raise money for than big, traumatic events like an earthquake," Portella says.
Relief agencies are now looking at ways to help rebuild infrastructure. But with more rain on the way, they'll have to wait until the waters recede, which might take months or even years.
For more information:
Mercy Corps
World Vision
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