But as we’ve reported, the most pressing concern right now are the needs of those living in the affected areas. 180 people are still held up in shelters in Corozal Town and another 32 are in shelters in Orange Walk. In addition there are hundreds more without power. NEMO says they have the supplies to take care of all those people. Chair of the Relief and Supplies Management Committee is Anita Zetina. She says there is a place that those in need of help with food and building supplies can turn to.
Anita Zetina, Chair – Relief & Supplies Committee
“Our teams are presently on the ground doing home to home visits because we may have people who were sheltering with families who have been left homeless as well, so we have to reach those. However, if there are people out there who are not receiving any assistance because we don’t know where they are at this point, they must contact the District Emergency Management Office or headquarters in the district, either Corozal or Orange Walk. We have a person there who would then get that information and immediately our teams out there would get food, water, and their basic needs to them.
We’re working very closely with the Red Cross who also does that kind of work so that we avoid duplication and actually reach the people who really need this assistance at this time. I think the issue of coordination of supplies is very important for us and so I am calling on any church, on any organization who is going to be doing the distribution of relief supplies to work very closely with us because it is very important for us to do that at this time.
So basically we do have food availability. We are working on the relief with regards to housing materials so that we can begin to prepare accessing those materials at this time. But with food, we have that on the ground.”
And as much as NEMO is helping, it also needs help. NEMO has opened a Hurricane Dean relief fund account at the Belize Bank. The account number is 695-1-1-69733. The Ministry of Health has also announced 4 medical teams have been dispatched to the affected areas mainly to control outbreaks of infections such as cholera.