PHILIPSBURG:---The St. Maarten Tzu Chi Foundation is currently collecting donations for Indonesia, which was devastated by a major 7.5 magnitude earthquake and tsunami on Friday, 28 September 2018.
Tzu Chi international has already sprung into action to help survivors of the major natural disaster, which has claimed the lives of 1,347 persons and counting.
Tzu Chi is hoping that the community of St. Maarten, which was affected by its own major disaster when hurricane Irma struck the island just over a year ago, will come together to support Indonesia, which is now facing its own disaster.
“We need civic groups to join and give their power of love to help Indonesia,” Tzu Chi St. Maarten said in echoing the wishes of Tzu Chi International. “We need to get ready with our power of love and pay attention to this disaster.”
Tzu Chi St. Maarten has already prepared collection bottles to collect donations starting at Cake House supermarket on the L.B. Scott Road today Wednesday 3, October 2018. “Please join us to pool love together for Indonesia,” Tzu Chi St. Maarten Commissioner Sandra Cheung urged the community.
Cheung, whose supermarket Cake House along with Tzu Chi, has been helping the community of St. Maarten/St. Martin with relief since hurricane Irma struck, is hopeful that St. Maarten can respond in kind to help another nation in its own recovery efforts.
Cheung said whomever wishes to donate can also do so via Tzu Chi’s relief account at Windward Islands Bank account #21932201.
The 7.5-magnitude quake struck just off the central island of Sulawesi, setting off a tsunami that engulfed the coastal city of Palu. Aid supplies are beginning to arrive in the city, where survivors have no access to running water or electricity.
The number of people known to have died in Friday's earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia continued to rise. The death toll jumped on Tuesday from a previously confirmed figure of 844.
In a separate incident, a volcano began erupting on the same island, Sulawesi, on Wednesday.
Mount Soputan is about 1,000km (600 miles) away from Palu, and it was not immediately seen as a threat to the aid operation.
