Samaritan's Purse Organizes Massive Tsunami Aid Airlift
by Allie Martin
January 21, 2005
(AgapePress) - A massive air shipment for victims of the recent South Asian tsunami has arrived in the devastated region. A 747-200 jet loaded with supplies took off from Charlotte Douglas Regional Airport in North Carolina earlier this week as part of the "Airlift of Mercy" coordinated by Samaritan's Purse.Samaritan's Purse President Franklin Graham is in Southeast Asia, overseeing the ministry's relief efforts. Among the provisions the Airlift of Mercy is transporting to the disaster zone are blankets, medical supplies, a helicopter, 1,400 rolls of reinforced plastic, and water filters designed to provide enough clean water for 45,000 people.
Although cleanup and recovery efforts are underway in South Asia, Barry Hall of Samaritan's Purse says, "It is still an extremely devastated area. One of the quotes we got from our staff on the ground, as he surveyed the area by air, was that it looked like a huge hand had just swept the entire seacoast inland. So the devastation is still massive."
Many tsunami survivors in Sumatra, Sri Lanka, and other parts of Southern Asia have lost their homes and are "afraid to go back down to the coast to rebuild, Hall notes, "so they're trying to rebuild up away from the ocean a little bit." Meanwhile, Samaritans Purse has teams on the ground in the hard-hit areas, helping to meet critical needs.
The ministry spokesman says the huge 747 used in the airlift brought many items that will be invaluable to the relief effort. The helicopter, in particular, was an important addition. "That was one of the biggest pieces that we wanted to get on there," he says, "because -- especially the west coast of Sumatra, being hit by a powerful earthquake and the tsunami -- many of the areas are still cut off for relief aid."
Those are the areas Samaritan's Purse particularly wants to target, so Hall says the helicopter was a very important "piece of the puzzle" to get into the shipment. He says the Airlift of Mercy is going to help many people, especially those who lost nearly everything when the tidal wave struck.
