Period covered by this update: 24 March to 28 April 2011.
Summary: On 30 March 2011, CHF 157,540 was allocated from the IFRC’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support the Myanmar Red Cross Society (MRCS) in delivering immediate assistance to 1,500 households (7,500 beneficiaries) in the Shan (East) State in Myanmar. These families were affected by an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter scale on 24 March 2011. Replenishment of DREF funds have been received from Canadian Red Cross/Canadian government, Netherlands Red Cross/Netherlands government, and the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (DG ECHO).
The DREF operation is expected to be implemented over three months and completed by 30 June 2011. A final report will be made available within three months after the end of the operation by 30 September 2011.
The impact of the earthquake on the population in the area was smaller than estimated during the first week, therefore with this DREF update, a slight revision of the initial budget is being made. The immediate coverage of needs for basic relief items, including shelter material from available stocks by all humanitarian organizations on the ground, was high. As such, MRCS will reduce the target group for the distribution of family kits from 1,500 to 700 households and is additionally distributing family tents which were requested due to the cold climate conditions in the area to 300 families The final number of households covered will be therefore less than 1,000 (given that part of the families received the tents as well as the family kits), instead of the initial 1,500 households (with 7,500 beneficiaries). The emergency response activities after the earthquake have been seen as rapid with good coverage due to the disaster preparedness stocks of different organizations in-country under the various contingency plans.
With the DREF support, immediate response and assessments by local Red Cross volunteers were initiated, while additional skilled staff from the MRCS headquarters were deployed for the overall management and support to further assessments which were carried out jointly with other humanitarian organizations on the ground in a multi-agency assessment. This included local non-governmental, international non-governmental and UN organizations. Disaster preparedness stock from the nearby MRCS warehouse with family kits was immediately dispatched to the most affected areas.
On behalf of the Myanmar Red Cross Society, IFRC would like to thank all donors for their generous support of the DREF.
