CAFOD rushes aid to cyclone-hit Bangladesh

CAFOD (the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development) has committed an initial £200,000 to help victims of the Bangladesh cyclone as it works closely with its partners on the ground to provide emergency relief.

CAFOD partner Caritas Bangladesh already prepared its humanitarian response in anticipation of Cyclone Cidr by opening an emergency control room in advance, issuing advanced warnings of the arriving cyclone and assisting with the evacuation of people and livestock.

The super cyclonic storm has wrought huge devastation acoss Bangladesh after hitting the country's coast last Thursday evening.

Millions have been left homeless and the latest death toll stood at 3,447 on Tuesday afternoon.

Aid is only now trickling in to remote areas after trees and debris hurled down by the cyclone damaged road and telecommunication infrastructure.

Pauline Taylor-McKeown, CAFOD's Head of International Department: Asia, said: "The death toll keeps rising, hundreds of thousands are homeless as homes have been washed away or crushed and livestock has been killed. Many families are still staying in cyclone shelters because they have nowhere else to go, and conditions are extremely crowded.

"There is an urgent need for food, shelter and medical care. Drinking water is also a priority as many pumps have been washed away. Caritas and our other partners in Bangladesh are already distributing relief."

CAFOD will be coordinating its aid response with the Caritas International network of Catholic aid agencies.

The agency noted that many lives were saved in districts with cyclone shelters. Around 2,000 have been constructed since 1991 and CAFOD supported some of construction efforts.

The situation remains desperate for many, however. "Little could be done to protect people's homes and livelihoods from the super cyclone's onslaught. The coastal area is very poor and in many villages little remains to even show where houses used to exist," CAFOD said.

World Vision USA, meanwhile, is appealing for a fresh $2.1 million injection to sustain its humanitarian response to the widespread devastation in Bangladesh caused by Cyclone Sidr.

The aid package will include $1.5m worth of tin sheeting for 9,375 families - or 50,000 - who have lost their homes. A further $640,000 will ensure that there are enough emergency food and relief items to meet the needs of some 100,000 people.

"The scale of the devastation is enormous. It is very hard to get to some areas due to fallen trees. There is need wherever we look," said Vince Edwards, World Vision's national director in Bangladesh.

Edwards has been working with the agency's relief teams in some of the worst hit communities. "We need to get bundles of tin sheeting to these families living out in the open," said Edwards.

"We are going to focus our efforts on the worst affected: people who have completely lost their homes, women-headed households, the poorest of the poor and those families who have children with disabilities."

Rika Halder, 11, and her family are homeless after the cyclone's high winds threw their fragile family home, made of only bamboo and mud, into a nearby marshland.

"Our house was taken away like a toy," Halder told a World Vision aid worker. "We found it ... but without a roof or wall. My father and mother started screaming, as we were, too. What we need most is food and a place to live. It is hard to live under open sky."

World Vision emergency food packs containing two kilogrammes of rice and one kilo of sugar or molasses have already been delivered to 2,400 families.

The agency is also readying 7-day emergency relief packs that include water, rice, potatoes, sugar, oil, salt, blankets, mattresses, clothing, oral re-hydration salts and candles for distribution to some 20,000 families, or 100,000 individuals.

The response is being carried through by more than 800 World Vision staff and volunteers, with some providing first aid to those injured by flying debris and collapsing homes.

To support World Vision's Bangladesh response www.worldvision.org