SILVER SPRING, Md. - The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is expanding its response to meet the need of survivors of Typhoon Ketsana, distributing desperately needed emergency food kits for more than 3,000 families currently displaced in Metro Manila and its neighboring provinces. ADRA is distributing food packets packed with rice, sardines, noodles, beans, dried fruits, milk, and essentials such as oil, salt, and sugar for 16,7775 people, or 3,355 families, in the greater Manila area.
"The initial food distribution made us realize that the basic need for food aid was unmatched in almost all of the intervention areas," said Göran Hansen, country director for ADRA Philippines.
Each food packet will feed a family of five for one week. Beneficiaries are chosen in coordination with the Philippine Department of Social Welfare and Development, in order to better identify those most in need. Priority will be given to families with children, the elderly, those with disabilities, and those who lost their homes in the disaster.
This intervention is valued at $50,000, and is funded by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ADRA International, the Southern Asia Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists, the ADRA Asia Regional Office and ADRA Philippines.
As of October 1, the National Disaster Coordinating Council reported that the storm, with 280 people confirmed dead and another 42 still missing, affected more than 626,625 families. The storm did more than $107 million worth of damage, with $68 million of that in the agricultural sector and more than $39 million in infrastructure.
On September 28, ADRA began implementing its initial emergency intervention of food packets to meet the "overwhelming need" for food aid of survivors in the targeted region. ADRA was one of the few non-governmental organizations to begin providing assistance to flood survivors in Quezon City, Marikina City and San Mateo, Rizal Province. This ongoing intervention, which was originally targeted to assist 1,345 families, will be completed within the next 30 days.
Ketsana, which is also known locally as Ondoy, hit the northern Philippines last weekend, bringing torrential rainfall, record flooding and deadly landslides, and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
GMANews.TV, a website for the news department of the Philippine broadcaster GMA Network, Inc., reported that, according to Nathaniel Cruz, weather services bureau head of the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), in the first six hours of the storm, total rainfall was approximately 13 inches (341 mm), greater than the highest number in recorded history of rainfall in one 24-hour period set in 1967. Cruz also added that in those six hours, it rained nearly as much as it normally rains in an entire month in Metro Manila.
On September 27, a State of National Calamity was declared for Metro Manila and 25 Luzon provinces in response to the storm, allowing officials to use emergency funds for relief and rescue.
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To send your contribution to ADRA's Emergency Response Fund, please contact ADRA at 1.800.424.ADRA (2372) or give online at www.adra.org.
ADRA is a non-governmental organization present in 125 countries providing sustainable community development and disaster relief without regard to political or religious association, age, gender, race or ethnicity.
For more information about ADRA, visit www.adra.org.
Author: Nadia McGill
For more information, contact:
John Torres, Senior Public Relations
Manager
301.680.6357 (office)
301.680.6370 (fax)
John.Torres@adra.org