A plane laden with emergency relief supplies arrived at Yangon international airport late last night local time (8 May). The flight, chartered by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, took off from Kuala Lumpur carrying five tonnes of emergency shelter equipment.
This flight and the others scheduled to follow are vital for the growing relief operation says Bridget Gardner, the International Federation’s head of delegation in Myanmar.
“One of the immediate needs is to get shelter to the people,” she said. “Hundreds of thousands have lost their homes and are sleeping in temples and pagodas or in the open.”
A second, eight-tonne consignment left Kuala Lumpur on a scheduled commercial flight later in the evening, and is due to arrive in Myanmar this morning via Bangkok.
“Our plan is to use a combination of charter flights along with all the available commercial air space that we can get,” said John Sparrow, spokesman for the operation in Kuala Lumpur. “We’re also looking at overland options. Every option, every idea is being explored.”
Thousands of Myanmar Red Cross volunteers are working around the clock in the country’s devastated delta region to support the communities affected. However access to the region remains very challenging.
Additional Red Cross and Red Crescent technical experts are also arriving in Myanmar. The first, a regional disaster management coordinator arrived on Tuesday (6 May) with additional personnel due to land in country today.
A regional disaster response team (RDRT) comprising trained aid workers from the Philippine and Indonesian Red Cross Societies will join the growing delegation in the coming days.
“The challenge now is to get these resources out to the most vulnerable people in the delta as quickly as we can,” said Ms Gardner.
“The situation there is a humanitarian catastrophe.”
For more information on the International Federation’s operation, visit www.ifrc.org/myanmar