Please donate and help the children and families in desperate need in Myanmar

• $40 could provide a family with a hygiene kit containing buckets for collecting water, soap, detergent, toothpaste and toothbrushes. This will help to protect children from contracting waterborne diseases and suffering from illnesses associated with poor hygiene.

To donate:

• Donate online
• Call our toll free number 1800 76 00 11 and donate over the phone.
• Download the Myanmar Cyclone Emergency Appeal form [Adobe PDF] and post it or fax it to us.
  Fax: (03) 9938 2088 / Post: Myanmar Cyclone Emergency Appeal, Save the Children, Locked Bag 5000, Fitzroy VIC 3065.

Myanmar cyclone leaves thousands of children hungry and homeless

Save the Children estimates that the number of people affected by the cyclone is over 400,000 in the eight townships that were hardest hit.

Children are homeless, hungry and vulnerable in a remote region of Myanmar decimated by powerful cyclone Giri. There are reports that some small islands have been completely destroyed. Save the Children has launched an appeal to bring urgently needed aid to the devastated area.

Save the Children aid workers travelled 36 hours across mountains blocked by mudslides to reach the remote coastal region hit by the category-four cyclone last Friday. Communities in the archipelago of islands off the west coast of the country are cut-off from the mainland by a large mountain range. With the true scale of the emergency now emerging, Save the Children warns that villages in the path of the storm appear as devastated as those hit by Cyclone Nargis in 2008.

“We still don’t know how many people have been injured or killed but we fear hundreds of children may have been hurt in the violent storm and hundreds more have lost or become separated from their parents.

“Our teams on the ground are reporting that whole islands have been destroyed – schools, homes and in some cases entire villages were swept away,” said Andrew Kirkwood, Save the Children’s Country Director in Myanmar.

Surging tides and winds of up to 110 miles per hour have wreaked damage on the region’s infrastructure. The roofs of three major hospitals in the area have been blown off. Save the Children is particularly concerned about access to clean water as wells have been destroyed and ponds filled with salty water. Over the past three days, Save the Children has reached 20,000 people with emergency food. We aim to reach 80,000 people in the coming weeks with food, water, oral rehydration salts, water purification tablets and plastic sheeting. We are also distributing children’s kits with clothes, sandals and toys for families who will have lost everything in this disaster.