Source: World Vision
Date: 12 Mar 2011
By World Vision staff
As the impact of the most powerful 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami begins to be understood, World Vision is responding.
"We are now facing the most tragic disaster in our country's history. We will have so many challenges as we plan to conduct a relief operation to help respond to the needs of the affected children who are most vulnerable during this time," said Kenjiro Ban, World Vision's humanitarian and emergency affairs manager in Japan.
Death tolls and the numbers of those missing continue to climb. Entire villages were washed away. Hundreds of thousands are displaced. Hardest hit are coastal areas of north-eastern part of the country.
Ban said, "World Vision will be deploying three staff to the quake zone to assess the impact and identify immediate needs of the survivors. We are responding with an initial budget of US$400,000 for an initial one month period and appreciate the assistance from the partnership to mount our operation."
World Vision plans to distribute daily necessities after the assessment has been done. Child Friendly Spaces will also be considered as a psycho-social response to the children who faced such a traumatic situation.
Meanwhile, all World Vision staff are accounted for and the World Vision building was not affected.
"Our prayers and that of the partnership are for the survivors as well as everyone impacted by the calamity," said Ban.
In the immediate wake of the quake and tsunami yesterday, all the major transportation means like trains and highways were stopped in major affected cities. Electricity was cut off for about 7,000,000 households while telecommunications was down.
World Vision responded to the massive Kobe earthquake in 1995 that claimed 5,500 lives.
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