05543
Oct. 10, 2005   

PDA sends $60,000 to Pakistan
for survivors of titanic earthquake 

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE — Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) has sent $60,000 to Pakistan to help survivors of a major earthquake.

     The money, from One Great Hour of Sharing and designated disaster funds, is being channeled through Church World Service (CWS), PDA said in a situation report issued Monday.

     Church World Service in Pakistan/Afghanistan began responding immediately after the temblor struck on Saturday. Its epicenter was about 60 miles north-northeast of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

     CWS sent food to the hardest-hit areas of Pakistan — Azad Kashmir and North West Frontier Province (NWFP), PDA said. The food items included wheat flour, rice, sugar, cooking oil, tea and salt.

     Matchboxes and soap also were provided to evacuee families. Health camps are being set up to serve 50,000 to 100,000 people. Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) has sent a team to assist with water and sanitation problems.

     PDA, the relief arm of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and members of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International are providing immediate relief to survivors while preparing for a major organized response, the PDA report said.

     ACT is a Geneva-based international alliance of churches and relief agencies.

     The quake, which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale of ground motion, rocked parts of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Searchers were working into the night Monday to recover bodies and find more survivors. The reported death toll surpassed 30,000. In some areas, tempers flared over the slow pace of relief efforts.

     PDA said all the PC(USA) mission personnel serving in Pakistan that it managed to contact are safe. The two workers it has not been able to reach, it said, are not stationed near the affected area and are believed to be OK. PDA is sending the Rev Kathy Angi, a mission co-worker and psychosocial specialist now serving in Hungary, to southern Asia to work with NCA and the Church of Sweden in providing psychosocial care for survivors. 

     PDA is also enlisting the help of female seminary students at Gujranwala Theological Seminary in Pakistan to serve as translators and to train with Angi and others to provide long-term care.

     PDA Coordinator Susan Ryan and Pamela Burdine, PDA’s associate for communication and resources, could not be reached on Monday.