WASHINGTON (ABP) — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the American Baptist Churches are sending relief funds to aid victims of the earthquake that virtually wiped out the Iranian city of Bam.
The Dec. 26 temblor killed, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development, 33,000-34,000 people — nearly half the population of the ancient city. It also left 30,000 injured and nearly 70,000 homeless in the region after thousands of unreinforced mud-brick buildings crumbled. The quake measured a 6.6 in magnitude.
Sandor Szenczy, president of Hungarian World Aid, reported from Bam that more than three-fourths of the city's structures had collapsed. “Everywhere we looked injured and wounded people tried to get treatment,” he said, according to the American Baptist News Service.
American Baptists' World Relief Office has already provided $20,000 in emergency funds to be spent on disaster relief in Bam. Of that, $15,000 will be channeled through Church World Service, the benevolent arm of the World Council of Churches, and $5,000 will be sent via Baptist World Aid, the relief agency of the Baptist World Alliance.
The Atlanta-based CBF has also provided an initial gift of $20,000 for Iranian earthquake victims. Of that, $10,000 is being directed through Persian World Outreach. According to a CBF news release, those funds will go “for help in the transitional needs for victims with a long-term perspective of how PWO can work in the future in transformational development.”
The other $10,000 from CBF is being divided evenly between Baptist World Aid and Conscience International. The latter group “is a private voluntary organization that creates programs and provides services for the relief of hunger, disease, suffering, homelessness, and the denial of human rights,” according to CBF's release. The Conscience International funds will be spent on medical relief and grief counseling.
CBF leaders hope the division of gifts means the Fellowship will have a hand in both short-term relief and long-term redevelopment after the disaster.
“Now that the search and rescue phase has been completed, earthquake response groups will make initial assessments and plans for short and longer-term recovery work,” David Harding, CBF international coordinator for emergency relief, said in the release. “The humanitarian response has been good but often the transition to longer-term response is often forgotten once the media leaves. The Fellowship wants to play a role in both phases.”
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