Call for Help: Earthquake Relief

Dear Colleagues,

As you have heard from the news, south-western areas of China were struck by a deadliest earthquake two days ago. As I am reading and monitoring all news sources, the death toll has been mounting from a few thousands to the current 14 thousands confirmed, with more still buries under rubbles and many remain missing. While most attention has been drawn to the central of the disaster, Wenchuan, it is likely that peripheral regions such as Mianzhu suffered worse. Also, as the earthquake happened in school time, many of the victims are children attending classes. In some areas, a whole generation were lost when a major school building in the town collapsed. The most devastated areas are located in deep of mountains of Sichuan Basin. The most significant bottleneck of the relief operation has been to get more rescue people and resources into the area due to bad weather, mountain collapses and consecutive landslides.

My family in northern China was not affected by the earthquake. Thank you for your caring and comforting messages. While rescue teams are risking their lives racing with time trying to help people who lost, suffered, and many still waiting to be found, I would kindly ask that you make a donation, large or small to the relief effort of this disaster. In a disaster of this scale, any help could be used, and any help would make a difference.

I am not sure on the College EMail list policy, so I am sending this to you, my colleague in the same department, or had been in a same department. Please feel free to forward it to other colleagues and friends you know. I find following charities who are accepting donation for the earthquake online:

• American Red Cross
  
• Mercy Corps
  
• International Red Cross
  

Thank you for taking time reading this message. I will try to answer any questions you may have regarding the disaster and the relief effort. You may tell me the amount of your generous gift. For each dollar you give, I pledge to run one mile in local race events, the registration fees of which should benefit local charities and schools. Thank you very much.