In response to a direct appeal by the Cambodian Senior Minister in charge of Special Mission and Vice President of the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM), H.E. Dr Ly Thuch, Mercy Relief (MR) will deploy a five-man disaster response team within the next 36 hours to the affected areas in Cambodia.

On Wednesday afternoon, MR operations staff were given a first-hand 45-minute briefing on the latest situation in Cambodia by Dr Ly Thuch  through Skype.

  

MR Assistant Director Jaffar Mydin (photo left, in white) having a ‘live’ Skype from MR HQ with Senior Minister Dr Ly Thuch (photo right) in Phnom Penh.

Since early August, persistent rains have caused severe flash floods which inundated 16,889 houses across 17 of the 24 provinces in the country.  To date, over 220,162 affected families (1,100,810 people) have been forced to evacuate from their homes with 167 lives lost due to the crisis. With more than 290,000 hectares of rice fields damaged and water sources contaminated by the floods, the government is facing a serious challenge in attending to the widespread needs of food, water and shelter.

MR has launched a public appeal for donations to support its relief efforts. During the acute relief phase, MR is partnering the National Committee for Disaster Management to address the basic survival needs of the disaster victims including the provision of food and clean water.

Chief Executive Hassan Ahmad said, ““The current floods are larger in scale as compared to the major ones in 2000. We need to get to the victims as soon as possible to cater to their survival needs and prevent further exposure to the natural elements or loss of lives. We are also closely monitoring the impending landfall of typhoon Nalgae that is approaching Indo-China, and which may cause further bourgeoning of the Mekong.  We are bracing for what could be worse.””

In tandem, MR is also dispatching 15 water filtration systems ($60,000)  and about 30,000 Meals-Ready-to-Eat (MREs)($75,000) to the floods in the Philippines caused by the triple typhoons Nock.ten, Nesat and Nalgae.  MR is also monitoring the devastating flooding in Thailand, Vietnam and Laos.  There has been no appeals for international aid from these 3 countries yet.

About Mercy Relief

Mercy Relief is a Singaporean humanitarian organisation which engages in both disaster relief and sustainable development programmes. It was established in 2003 as an independent non-governmental humanitarian charity responding to the human tragedies in Asia. Mercy Relief’s aid programme focuses on providing timely and effective assistance to disaster-stricken communities and has maintained the delivery of emergency aid within 72 hours from the point of appeal for assistance.  

In the past 12 years, Mercy Relief has disbursed over S$32 million in aid across 40 disaster relief and 53 sustainable development initiatives. Mercy Relief has impacted an aggregate of 2 million lives in 24 countries and areas, namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, DPR Korea, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Laos, Lebanon, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal,  Pakistan, Palestine, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and Yemen.

For more information, you may call us at 6514 6322 or email corporateaffairs@mercyrelief.org

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