Extending Hands, Connecting Hearts Extending Hands, Connecting Hearts Extending Hands, Connecting Hearts Extending Hands, Connecting Hearts Ops PQ Relief Update #2 - Persistent Downpours Pose Problems Landslides cut access to communities and inflict more deaths and displacements Bohol, Philippines, 21 October –The death toll in last Tuesday’s earthquake that hit the Philippines has touched 198, with 185 of those occurring in Bohol, the epicenter of the 7.2 Richter quake. More than 2.9 million people have been affected and 378,000 families are displaced, while many more are staying across 104 evacuation centres. Singapore humanitarian relief and development NGO, Mercy Relief (MR), had its assessment personnel at the affected grounds of Bohol within 15 hours from the appeal for assistance by the Philippine’s Citizens’ Disaster Response Center (CDRC) last Friday evening, and joined by its relief team the next day. The 5-man team personally deployed the manual-powered PedalPure water filtration systems across the devastated municipalities of Loon, Antequera and Sagbayan, manouvering around collapsed bridges, cracked roads and landslides, with the conditions worsened by persistent rains which made the soil-laden roads slippery. With access to clean water restored, the MR team distributed food parcels comprising rice, canned food, noodles and preserved seafood to over 600 families in Bohol. Leading the relief team, MR’s chief Hassan Ahmad said, “Strong aftershocks can still be felt daily. The survivors are too traumatised to return to their homes. The priority is to continue reaching out to the more remote communities to provide the much-needed clean water and food for their survival. Persistent bad weather is slowing down those efforts but everyone is chipping in –from the government agencies, the local people’s organisations and the NGOs –all trying to help stabilise the situation for everyone affected”. The first tranche of aid worth SGD20,000 was through the early donations from Cuffz Holdings and Cargill. The PedalPure systems reached Bohol safely and swiftly with the assistance from the Philippines embassy in Singapore which facilitated the cross-border administrative requirements and the Philippines Airlines (PAL) which provided complimentary cargo space. Homes and public buildings were badly damaged by the 7.2 magnitude earthquake. Mercy Relief http://www.mercyrelief.org/web/Contents/Contents.aspx?Yr=2013... 1 / 3 2013/10/28 21:41