Samaritan's Purse-chartered cargo jet landing soon in Philippines to help devastated typhoon victims

Christian aid agency providing 100 tonnes of emergency equipment & supplies, plus experts

CALGARY, Nov. 16, 2013 /CNW/ - A Boeing 747 cargo plane carrying 100 tonnes of emergency equipment and medical supplies from Samaritan's Purse is scheduled to land about 7pm Calgary time today in the Philippines to provide urgently needed assistance to people left homeless and barely surviving after Typhoon Haiyan.

The chartered Boeing 747's contents—supplied by Samaritan's Purse offices and their supporters in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom—included six community water filters, each capable of providing safe water to thousands of people, plus medical tents, medical supplies, electricity generators, plastic sheeting for emergency shelters, blankets, and mosquito nets.

The jet is to arrive in Cebu City about mid-morning Sunday local time. It left from Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, NC-near Samaritan's Purse's global headquarters in Boone, NC-on Friday morning local time.

Within 24 hours after the plane lands in Cebu City, everything is to arrive by barge in Tacloban, one of the hardest-hit areas by the Nov. 8 typhoon's 270-km/hr winds and widespread flooding that killed an estimated 10,000 people.

In addition to the emergency airlift, Samaritan's Purse has sent doctors and nurses, plus about 20 members of its international Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), with more arriving in the Philippines almost daily. The DART has trained specialists to coordinate a variety of needs including emergency shelters, water filtration systems, medical facilities, and food distribution.

Samaritan's Purse has also sent about 4,500 hygiene kits from Calgary. The kits will play a vital role in helping typhoon victims avoid the infections and disease that are so often part of major disasters. The relief and development organization is working with local volunteers in the Philippines to assemble more hygiene kits and food parcels for distribution on the Philippine islands of Cebu and Bantayan.

Samaritan's Purse has worked in the Philippines for more than 15 years, including through the distribution of hundreds of thousands of gift-filled Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes, and in response to previous natural disasters including a deadly earthquake and late-2012 typhoon.

"The people of the Philippines desperately need our help," said Fred Weiss, Executive Director of Samaritan's Purse Canada. "We are asking Canadians to partner with us in providing that help through their donations and their prayers."

Donations Needed - Dec. 9 Deadline for Federal Matching

Go to SamaritansPurse.ca or call 1-800-663-6500 to donate. December 9 is the deadline for donations to be eligible for matching by the Canadian government. You can learn more about Samaritan's Purse's Philippines relief efforts at SamaritansPurse.ca, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube.

About Samaritan's Purse Canada

Samaritan's Purse Canada is an international Christian relief and development organization working in about 40 countries to help victims of war, disease, disaster, poverty, famine, and persecution. We also operate the well-known Operation Christmas Child program that sends gift-filled shoeboxes to needy children around the world each year. In addition, we build and install thousands of life-saving BioSand Water Filters in the developing world. For more information, visit SamaritansPurse.ca.

SOURCE: Samaritan's Purse Canada

News Media Inquiries:

Canada:

Jeff Adams
Communications Director
Samaritan's Purse Canada
1-800-663-6500 (office)
1-403-615-8747 (mobile)
[email protected]

Philippines:

Karina Petersen
Media Relations Coordinator
Samaritan's Purse International
[phone] (Philippine cell)
1-828-773-4666  (U.S. cell)
[email protected]