August 4, 2010
Photo by RIA Novosti
The Russian Orthodox Church has launched a campaign to collect charity donations. Centres have been set up in many cities to receive humanitarian aid for the people who lost their homes in fires. Residents of many cities bring clothes, bedding, goods for children, and other items which are of prime necessity. Many people lost all they had in the natural disaster. They will be glad to get any aid they can, said a volunteer at one such humanitarian aid collection centre.
“I try to picture how I would feel if I lost everything,” Maria said. “We, in Moscow, are not immediately concerned by the disaster, for better or worse. I think it’s absolutely incredible that in the 21st century a village can burn down with nobody being able to interfere in some way to prevent it.”
Volunteer drivers often use their own cars to take the humanitarian aid, collected by people, to where it is needed. A blog has been set up in the Internet by the people who wish to help those left homeless by wildfires.
Dedicated websites
http://community.livejournal.com/pozar_ru/
will advise potential donors about what exactly the people displaced by fires actually need and where.
Germany offers medical help and assistance in the construction of temporary accommodations for the displaced people, and is ready to supply them with drinking water.
Estonia is also standing by to line up firefighting gear with the country’s homeland security chief Erkki Kort saying that even though his country has no emergency assistance accord with Russia, that was no reason not to lend a helping hand in time of need.
Russian officials, for their part, assure that all those made homeless by the sweeping wildfires will get new housing before winter.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday he would personally supervise the reconstruction of fire-ravaged homes via video cameras to be installed at each construction site, and would broadcast the images to the government website.
