Global Policy Forum

By Nicole Wallace

Chronicle of Philantropy
October 12, 2005

CARE USA, in Atlanta, doesn't have a tally yet, but says that in the first day and a half after the earthquake, donations were about 10 percent of what they were during the same period after the South Asian tsunamis in December. "We do have some concerns about donor fatigue," says Mark Melia, director of annual giving and support at Catholic Relief Services, in Baltimore, which has raised $56,000. "We understand given the enormous outpouring for the tsunami and tremendous response for Hurricane Katrina that it's a lot to ask of people to respond once again."

Comparing the initial response to that of other disasters is difficult, he says, because the first time the group raised a significant percentage of gifts online was after the tsunamis. As a result, he says, it is hard to compare the charity's early returns to those after the Gujarat earthquake in India in 2001 or the Bam earthquake in Iran in 2003, when a large percentage of donations came in through the mail.

"That having been said, it does seem like it's a little slower this time," says Mr. Melia. "It's going to take a little longer this time because of the context that it's coming in. It's the third major emergency within a year." AmeriCares, in Stamford, Conn., has brought in almost $190,000. Church World Service has raised $170,000, while the American Red Cross, in Washington, has received $45,000 via the Internet and over the telephone.

The United Nations Foundation, in Washington, has pledged $1-million to support the United Nations' relief efforts. Relief workers say they hope that as Americans learn more about the extent of the devastation, the pace of giving will pick up. "We have reports coming in of towns completely flattened and destroyed by the earthquake," says Gregory Beck, regional director for Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus for the International Rescue Committee, in New York. "Every place that our four teams are moving, there are massive amounts of people who are without shelter, who are just sleeping out under the stars."

Charities already working in the region have started providing basic aid, such as food, water, shelter, and medicine, but some of those organizations and their workers are victims of the disaster themselves. All of Church World Service's staff members in Pakistan survived the earthquake, but one worker's wife and children died when the family's home collapsed.

The relief organization, based in New York, also reports that its office and health clinic in the Mansehra district of Pakistan was damaged in the quake. Church World Service was able to reopen the clinic on Sunday, but there is no water -- the facility's water tank exploded -- and the only electricity available is the output from a single generator.

Donna Derr, interim director of the organization's emergency-response program, says that damage to roads is making it difficult to reach survivors. "Some of the areas, even in nondisaster times, are certainly remote, and not always easily accessible," says Ms. Derr. According to Ms. Derr, initial estimates put the number of people who lost their homes in the Mansehra district at 505,000, out of a total population of 1.4 million. The large numbers of people left homeless after the quake is a major concern, she says, as the weather turns colder. "We're moving into the winter season," says Ms. Derr. "Already it's cool and damp, but by early November, it's going to start being really cold, especially in some of the more northern areas."

Mr. Beck, of the International Rescue Committee, says that flurries are possible any time now, and that heavy snowfall will likely begin in the next three to five weeks. Whether people will stay and try to ride out the winter or whether they will move to the country's urban areas to seek services there is still up in the air, he says. "These first couple of days people are just thinking, 'How do I survive till tomorrow?'" says Mr. Beck. "But within the first week or two, people will begin thinking, 'Should I start going to relatives down in Peshawar or Islamabad or Karachi?'"

The organization's assessment teams are talking to people to try to determine whether there will be a large migration. "I would expect most people are going to want to try to stay there, because they're mainly small farmers with livestock and small plots, and traditionally those are the people who want to remain on the land," says Mr. Beck. "But how they're going to survive the winter -- at this point, I don't know. It's going to be a really, really tough issue."

Raising the money needed to aid those left homeless may also prove to be daunting. Mr. Melia, of Catholic Relief Services, worries that with so many natural disasters, it's easy for donors to lose sight of the magnitude of the South Asian earthquake. He says his organization plans to acknowledge the large number of emergencies this year in its appeal to let donors know that the charity is "appreciative of whatever they can do."

"If the earthquake had happened before Katrina and the tsunami, that's the largest natural disaster since Hurricane Mitch," says Mr. Melia. "But it's the third in a year, so it's sort of like, 'Here we go again.'"

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