City rallies to provide relief

By Dan Hilborn
Published Jan. 5, 2005


The Canadian Red Cross disaster response centre in Burnaby has been overwhelmed by the public's outpouring of compassion following the catastrophic tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean on Dec. 26.

Hundreds of volunteers have come forward to help, and the organization has raised more than $61.3 million in just eight days, said Carmen MacKenzie, coordinator of marketing and public affairs for the Burnaby disaster response office.

"The generosity of Lower Mainland residents and Canadians has been unprecedented - absolutely unbelievable," MacKenzie said Monday afternoon. "Immediately after the earthquake and tsunamis, our phone lines were overloaded and we had to bring in an alternate system to cope with the volumes of people who wanted to donate and volunteer."

The Burnaby call centre, which is serving the entire country, has kept a crew of 180 volunteers and 12 to 15 staff members busy ever since the tragic Dec. 26 tidal waves swept across the Indian Ocean, killing more than 150,000 people and leaving up to five million more homeless.

As of Monday afternoon, the donations included $37.4 million in pledges from individual Canadians and corporations, with another $23.8 million from governments, including $8 million from the province of British Columbia.

Overall, the Canadian government has pledged more than $80 million in disaster relief and more is expected.

Kathryn Lee, a Burnaby resident and employee at the Burnaby Public Library, said she volunteered to answer the phones after she saw the terrible pictures on TV during the Christmas holiday season.

"I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't volunteered for anything in a long time," Lee said Monday, after her fourth day of answering phones at the Burnaby Red Cross offices. "I was sitting watching the TV and it was heartbreaking. I just wanted to do something, and I know I'm not alone."

Lee said some of the stories she's heard on the phone include a 90-year-old woman who described the tragedy as "the most upsetting things she'd heard in her entire life." Another woman had planned a trip to Phuket (one of several cities devastated by the largest earthquake in the past 40 years) with her children, but she had to cancel it when her roof leaked and the repairs cost too much.

"She's very upset," Lee said. "Instead of being relieved that she wasn't there, she now wants to go over and help."

The Red Cross, the largest humanitarian agency on earth, with offices in more than 181 countries, is providing two main services for the public - raising money to help with the relief efforts and registering families who are trying to locate loved ones who may have gone missing or been killed.

Chandler said the overall impact of the tsunamis that swept over thousands of kilometres of Southeast Asian coastline is almost impossible to calculate.

"The loss of life goes up shockingly hour by hour," said George Chandler, coordinator of the Canadian Red Cross humanitarian issues program, also based in Burnaby. "And the number who died foreshadow the enormous scale of the rebuilding process that will be needed in the future.

"The most important thing people can do now is donate money because that's the most flexible resource," Chandler said. "With money, people can buy what they need when they need it."

"People are calling us saying they have diving experience and construction experience, but that's not what's needed right now."

Chandler noted that he also has a personal connection to the disaster.

It was exactly 20 years ago to the day of the tsunamis that he was a young tourist vacationing on the island nation of Sri Lanka, which was directly in the path of the giant waves that swept over the Indian Ocean.