Abu Dhabi: A helping hand from the Emirates Red Crescent (ERC) has eased the earthquake relief efforts by the Nepalese Embassy and community organisations
ERC has agreed to accept the relief materials collected by the embassy and send them to Nepal, a top Nepalese diplomat told Gulf News on Sunday.
“We will hand over several tonnes of goods to ERC on Monday,” said Dhananjay Jha, the Nepalese Ambassador to the UAE.
Meanwhile Lt Colonel Mohammad Abdul Jalil Al Ansari, Head of the UAE Search and Rescue Team at the Ministry of Interior and Director General of Civil Defence in Abu Dhabi, said his team in Nepal has been providing medical assistance to the earthquake victims and training to Nepalese doctors and nurses.
The engineering group of the team utilised Security Media Drones to assess the damaged buildings, making the first use of drones in search and rescue operations worldwide. The drones were also used for surveillance to protect the people participating in the humanitarian mission.
The team also provided logistical support to the international search and rescue teams including the Emirates Red Crescent, Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation, Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Charity and Humanitarian Foundation and other UAE governmental institutions, The team provided technical support to the UN’s International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), by providing the latest satellite communication equipment, and highly trained teams to manage the operations room.
Al Ansari said the UN is conducting its search and rescue operations through the UAE team’s camp. He said 76 teams are participating in the relief efforts following the earthquake in Nepal, including 16 teams accredited by the INSARAG in accordance with the approved rescue mechanism.
A Nepalese community leader, coordinating the relief efforts in Abu Dhabi said, with Emirates Red Crescent’s (ERC) helping hand, the embassy and the community have overcome a major hurdle.
As Gulf News reported on Friday, they were looking for storage space in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and free cargo service to send the shipment to Kathmandu.
As the cargo service extended by ERC will clear the goods already received, the storage space problem is also expected to be solved soon, said Krisna Bhosal, the president of the UAE chapter of Non-Resident Nepalese Association (NRNA), an organisation registered with the government of Nepal.
“We have received more than 20 tonnes of relief goods including tents, blankets, dry foods, clothes and medicines at the embassy premises,” he said
“Around 100 volunteers from Nepalese community groups and around 20 from Dubai based volunteers.com are packing the goods to be handed over to ERC,” he said.
An executive of Air Arabia said they have a tie-up with ERC to ship the goods to Nepal.
“We have already sent small volumes of relief goods with regular flights and trying to arrange a chartered flight to send big volumes of goods,” Saeed Kamran, a cargo officer at Air Arabia, told Gulf News on Sunday.
MPLUS, a facility management company collecting goods free of cost of residents, said over 30 customers along with three schools and two businesses made appointments for collection of non-financial aid, as of Sunday. “Our campaign will be running until Thursday and we’ll be making the collections until then,” Stacey Murtagh, brand manager at MPLUS, told Gulf News on Sunday.
Meanwhile from the Foreign Exchange and Remittance Group (FERG) that comprises of leading exchange houses has invited remittance companies to waive charges for sending money to quake-hit Nepal for a month.
Normally, fees for sending money to Nepal cost around Dh15-Dh20, depending on the amount.
