May 13, 2008

BANGKOK – Humanitarian agency Church World Service has issued an appeal in the amount of $200,000 to provide aid to survivors of the earthquake in southwest China that has killed nearly 12,000 people. With its Asia Pacific Region team already in Bangkok coordinating response to the Myanmar cyclone, the China earthquake is the second major disaster the agency is responding to in less than two weeks.

In the China earthquake's aftermath, officials with the Amity Foundation, a long-time Church World Service partner in China, report that many buildings, including government facilities, have collapsed or are severely damaged, and that the demand on local emergency responders is great.

Donations to the appeal will help fund relief efforts by Amity Foundation, whose staff members now are assessing the damage from Chengdu and other affected areas. Amity already has provided 1 million Yuan (approximately US$143,000) to purchase and distribute drinking water and food for heavily-damaged Du Jiangyan.

More than 20 provinces are affected. Relief operations are expected to expand to include Wenchuan, Lixian, Beichuan, Maoxian, Dujiangyan, and Mianzhu counties in Sichuang Province; Longnan city in Gansu Province; Baoji city and Hanzhong city in Sha'anxi Province. The areas of Gansu and Sha'anxi, especially Sichuan, are being targeted because they are the most severely affected. Both the disaster response and the dissemination of information from stricken areas are complicated by the destruction of local communication systems and roads in the earthquake.

Amity will focus its relief on some 8,000 families whose homes are destroyed and who are among the most-vulnerable. Amity expects to ensure that 16,000 of the most vulnerable individuals have sufficient food (15 kilos of rice per person) during the immediate emergency period; that 8,000 families have sufficient additional protection against cold weather in the form of quilts; that 8,000 homeless families also have the added protection of plastic cloth to help them survive heavy rains forecast for the quake center areas.,

As part of the recovery effort Amity will help rebuild 600 damaged or destroyed houses, 10 schools and five hospitals or clinics, and also will rehabilitate five water and irrigation systems.

The total budget is estimated at close to $1.5 million.

Contributions to support this emergency appeal may be sent to Church World Service, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN, 46515 or at http://www.churchworldservice.org/ . Please designate: Appeal # 699-B, 2008 China Earthquake Response.

Working with local organizations in countries throughout the world, Church World Service provides relief and recovery, sustainable development, and refugee resettlement and protection services and is funded through public donations, grants and by the support of 35 U.S. Christian denominations.

Church World Service