Category: Disaster Relief
disaster relief efforts of MAM
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Rudraprayag update July 01
Uttarakhand Relief Work Moved up to Rudraprayag from Srinagar. The road to Rudraprayag is full of slush for many kilometers on end – the whole mountainside just slided down into the river carrying everything along with it. It’s the interiors of the mountains that need real help – the places where the spotlights of the news cameras haven’t reached yet.After reaching Rudraprayag, we decided to take a risk and move on to Agastaya Muni – a further 45 km upstream towards Kedarnath. The direct route had been washed out – and only a treacherous alternate village road led up to…
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…and now not able to go further
Uttarakhand Relief Work We decided to walk to nearby villages and see the situation firsthand as we felt we should receive before setting up a camp. We made the mistake of taking the locals literally about how far the next spot was…. Close by meant hours, and a couple of kilometres meant 10 or more on steep mountains. We have been walking all day long and seen scenes of devastation… Long swathes of non-existent roads, houses and hotels that were… but are no longer there. We are in Ghivani village… Stuck between here and there… sitting in the verandah of…
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MAM Relief team reaches Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand Relief Work 29 Jun 2013, Uttarakhand People from many parts of India and the World had been asking….. When are you going to Uttarakhand? Devotees knew that is there was a need Amma would respond. And Amma did respond and at the perfect time. It is only now that the roads have opened up for people to get to some point close to the affected areas. On our way to relief operation In Uttarkashi, roads had been washed away so many parts, villages were inaccessible, though there was not much loss of life or property as compared to…
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When the earth was pitching up and down
7 April 2011 It was the night of the seventh of April, and I had just fallen asleep in our tent. We were camping along with hundreds of other volunteers on the lawn of a local university, which had been transformed into the headquarters for the relief efforts in Ishinomaki. Half an hour before midnight, an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 suddenly hit. It felt as if the earth was pushing me straight up. It seemed like it lasted forever. I’ve experienced earthquakes before, but they have always been sort of a rolling sensation. This time, the earth was pitching…
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By putting myself in their shoes, I shared my heart
6 April 2011 On the third day, we were asked to aid Otschi-Cho, in the prefecture of Iwate. An IVUSA staff member who is very experienced in disaster relief joined me and two other students. Just like Minami-Sanriku, Otsuchi-Cho seemed to have vanished. When we arrived at Otsuchi-Cho Town Assembly Hall, there were many volunteers gathered there. After getting in touch with our local contact, we were taken to our assigned house. The work was similar to that in Kawakita—sweeping dirt from house and removing furniture. The flooring also had to be ripped out, and the sludge gathered underneath the…
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A heartwarming impression
5 April, 2011 On the second day, the IVUSA representative, a staff member, two students and I paid a visit to a town called Minami-Sanriku. There, we picked up various required supplies, like soap, shampoo and toothbrushes. We also took 20 cases of vegetable juice and cough drops, as many of the volunteers had developed sore throats due to sleeping in the chill coastal air. When we left, our car was fully loaded. Every single house on the coast in Minami-Sanriku had been washed away. In fact, it was hard to believe that a village had once been there. It…
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Put yourself aside and think about others
On the fourth of April, we had returned to Ishinomaki. There were 51 volunteers this time—28 IVUSA (International Volunteer Student Association) members and 20 students from Kokushikan University Sports Medicine Department. After we arrived, we set up a large tent to use as our head office and one for cooking. Next to them, we set up about nine more tents to sleep in. If we really pack ourselves in—like sardines in a can—we we able to fit five or six of us in a tent. But there was no room to even roll over! The first thing we did was…
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Into the land of destruction
I spent most of Friday, April 15th, in collecting all the needed items for the disaster relief work. We bought food, work gloves, and masks to protect against infection and potential radiation. We also had to buy a cheap tent and took a few thin sleeping bags from the Tokyo ashram, as that was all we had. We knew it would be colder in the disaster area, but never imagined exactly how cold it really was. There were 3 of us: Nath Hoshi, Santosh Miyazawa, and myself. By the time we left the city, it was almost 9 pm, and…
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A learning that transforms
Day Four: 31 March 2011 Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture The final day. Again we split up into two teams: clean-up and cooking. Outside its windy, raining and so cold. The cooking team sets up our kitchen tent in front of the supermarket near the residential area where many people stay in the upstairs level of houses. We have been told that no other group has cooked for these people yet. So we cook as much as we can—soup with lots of vegetables for 1,500 people. While the rest of the team cooks, five of us go door to door and visit…