Seva Tibet staff deliver aid to earthquake victims in Yushu

We’ve just received one bit of very good news from the earthquake zone. Contrary to earlier reports, the hospital in Yushu where Seva works was not destroyed, though the building was damaged in the quake and has cracks. The latest reports via Dolma at the Seva Tibet office in Lhasa are that one hospital staff member died in the earthquake.

The Seva Tibet staff have been extremely active in responding to the quake. As far as we know, Dr. Dorjee of the Kham Eye Centre and his eye care team is still in the disaster zone providing emergency medical care. Seva Tibet’s program director is Kunga Tashi. Before joining Seva, Kunga was the head of the Swiss Red Cross in Tibet, so he is very experienced in relief efforts and he was also involved in the earthquake relief after the 2008 Kham (Sichuan) earthquake. Because Seva has worked in the Yushu region for so long, he has many contacts on the ground.

This morning (April 20th) we at Seva Canada got this update from Dolma in the Seva Tibet office:

A Tibetan woman collects her belongings in A woman collects her belongs in Gyegu Town, near the earthquake-hit Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu,

Hi all,

Kunga la arrived on 17th around 7:00 pm in Yushu with 3 trucks of goods. On that night and the next day, he couldn’t distribute the food because there were many people (not necessary poor people or earthquake victims) trying to rob all the supplies of the three trucks. Those people tend to rob food and medical supplies and then sell them in the Yushu town.

In order to assure that the most needy people receive the food, clothes and medical supplies, Kunga la and the disabled person’s federation (our program partner) worked together and  distributed 35.5 tons of goods with 3 trucks to poor people on 19th. The goods distributed are $ 17,043 of tsampa (Tibetan barley), $23,023 of warm clothes and shoes, $10,800 of medicines and eye drops and $ 6265 of tents.

On Saturday evening (17th,) the second batch of goods with 4 trucks (46.5 tons) left for Yushu.  In those trucks, there are $26,063 of tsampa, $3055 of butter, $2135 of canned meat, $4453 of mineral water, $860 of dry black tea, $6059 of clothes, $1471 of salt, $220 of match and candles and $191 of instant noodles. All 4 trucks arrived in Yushu safely by 20th morning. Kunga la is trying to distribute some of the goods through monasteries, which have more access to poor earthquake victims. He is also linked up with a local association in which the director of the association is the Princess [the Panchen Lama’s daughter) who Kunga knows well],  to locate more victims and to identify other needs. The Princess is traveling to Yushu on 22nd.

Kunga la is saying that 100% of Tibetan houses are collapsed and 80% of concrete-built houses are cracked. Medical needs are pretty well fulfilled by different groups of medical teams sent by the government. The urgent need so far seems to be tents, tsampa and butter. The food flooding to Yushu from mainland is instant noodles but many nomads have stomach ache of eating them everyday and have more desire to eat tsampa.

Best, Dolma

The board and staff of Seva Canada and our sister organization, Seva Foundation in Berkeley, have raised money internally and are wiring money to Tibet to help with Kunga’s efforts. We have appealed to our donors to help in the long-term rebuilding of the eye care programs in this region which has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world. http://www.seva.ca/sevaintibet.htm

According to reports on the ground, the death toll from the earthquake is much higher than the official estimates and the numbers of dead reported in the media. The media today, April 20th, were reporting that the number of dead has reached over 2,000 and that the earthquake also injured 12,135 people and left several thousand people homeless in the remote, largely Tibetan area. People providing on-the-ground relief estimate the death toll is many times higher.