December Recovery Highlights

Dec. 31th

• A team from OB Thailand took supplies (including rice, toothpaste & brushes, soap) to 560 families living in Lun Thai Island in Krabi Province. This is the first tsunami relief they had received.
  
  
• OB Indonesia has 100 staff and volunteers working in the Banda Aceh area. Fourteen trucks filled with food and relief supplies are on their way from Jakarta to Aceh Province. The trip takes four days and three nights.
  
  
• OB India has a medical team south of Chennai at a Catholic Convent run by The Sisters of Mary Immaculate. Today our team treated 450 patients. In the next few days the nuns will lead our team to small remote villages needing medical assistance. The nuns also run a small hospital that we will help to supply with medicines.

• The OB India team purchased and distributed 1,000 blankets. It is getting chilly at night and the people made homeless need blankets. On January 5th our team will begin serving lunch and dinner at the convent to 1,000 survivors every day.
  
  
• The Maldivian Government representative in Singapore requested assistance from Operation Blessing Singapore alliances. Relief supplies are being marshaled and a team is being organized in Singapore to go to the Maldives.

• OB Indonesia has a command center and fully-functioning base clinic set up in Banda Aceh. 30 OB doctors, nurses and medical personnel are treating patients. We also have a distribution center in Banda Aceh staffed by 70 disaster relief workers distributing food, clothing, shoes and relief supplies. So far we have distributed 40 tons of goods.
  
  
• On December 31, OB in Virginia Beach will airlift $4.2 million worth of antibiotics to help our medical teams fight infections and disease in affected areas.
  
  
• Meulaboh Sumatra is an area not yet reached by any relief agency. Government air reconnaissance reports the death toll upwards of 80% of the population of 36,000. OB Indonesia will launch a task force to Meulaboh on January 2nd to provide survivors with food and medical services. We will also help to bury the dead.

• OB Indonesia chartered a private cargo aircraft in Jakarta, and sent a disaster response team to Aceh in Northern Sumatra. In cooperation with Indonesian Air Force, a C-130 brought in a large OB team of medical professionals and volunteers. The plane also carried tons of medical and relief supplies.
  
  
• OB Singapore has teamed up with the Singapore YMCA and the local crisis network to mobilize teams and resources for Sri Lanka. In addition, our Singapore office is coordinating efforts of volunteers that will go into stricken areas as soon as possible.
  
  
• OB Thailand sent a medical team of doctors, nurses and translators to Pangnga Province to relieve exhausted hospital staff members who have worked nonstop since the disaster struck.