Cyclone Update: The floodwaters aren’t going away

Cyclone Amphan has passed, but the disaster isn’t over for families who lost everything.

Countless houses are still submerged in floodwaters that have yet to go away. Families who should be “sheltering in place” right now have nowhere to shelter. Even worse, they don’t have food and clean drinking water.

Your $50 gift today will help provide emergency aid to one person struggling to survive in the aftermath of Cyclone Amphan.

Families who fled the storm are returning home, but they are quickly realizing there aren’t many homes to return to. Business owners who were waiting for coronavirus restrictions to be lifted so they could go back to work now have no businesses to go back to.

Grocery stores and pharmacies were the only establishments allowed to remain open during the pandemic. They were a lifeline for local families. And now they are gone too, washed away by the storm.

One report shared the story of a 58-year-old woman who is forced to wade through neck-deep floodwater to collect clean drinking water. Her husband is disabled, and the floods have blocked off her adult children from reaching her … so the exhausting task falls to her.

She struggles to stay upright as she drags her legs though the water. The trip back, balancing the full jug of water on her head, is even more treacherous.

In the same report, another woman explained that she and her husband have to swim through the streets every time they need to go out to find food for their child. “We might survive without food, but the baby?” she said.

Almost 100 people have already died from Cyclone Amphan. Now, those who survived are risking their lives swimming in the murky, bacteria- and debris-filled water. But they have no choice — the need food and other basic necessities.

Your gift today will help ensure they don’t have to take that potentially deadly risk. All it takes is $50 to help give one person emergency relief like food, clean water, and hygiene kits.

Between the coronavirus and the impacts of Amphan, it will take months for these homeless cyclone victims to get back on their feet. But you can give them the helping hand they need to begin the road to recovery.

Help a cyclone victim