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EMERGENCY IN SAMOA
TO FOLLOW OUR TRAUMA TEAM'S REPORT FROM SAMOA, PLEASE CLICK HERE: www.fbfinsamoa.com/
Dear Friend,
On 29 September 2009, an earthquake measuring a magnitude of 8.3 in the Pacific, off American Samoa generated a huge tsunami.
The earthquake lasted over five minutes. The epicenter of the quake was located 190 km southwest of American Samoa. Samoan reports say the first wave that hit in Apia was 0.7 of a metre while the second, larger wave in Pago Pago, in American Samoa, was measured at more than 5 metres. Thus far, the government has confirmed almost two hundred dead and many more injured. It is estimated that 10,000 people have been directly affected by the tsunami. This represents an enormous percentage of the total population of Samoa. There are many people in shock as there has not been anything like this in living memory.
Forty villages have been affected along 40 kilometres of coastline in the south of Upolu Island. Twenty villages on Upolu were completely destroyed and at least 2,000 people have been left homeless. People are living in makeshift shelters, camp areas set up by the Red Cross and with host families. While much agency response and attention is focused on Indonesia after the earthquake in Sumatra, Samoa is also in need of urgent assistance.
In the past, skilled trauma teams from Fortunate Blessings Foundation responded in 2005 to a similar emergency in Sri Lanka following the major tsunami when many agencies rushed to Thailand. We also traveled to Java following the earthquake of 2006. In the same way, we need your support to travel to Samoa to work directly with the Oceania University of Medicine in order to train residents, interns and medical professionals. Part of their request to us for help read as follows:
Our country desperately needs specialist grief counselors.
I know that you are well connected and have experiences in many disasters. Is it possible for your organization to fund one or two grief counselors to come here to help our staff, students and our medical colleagues at TTM hospital with some grief counseling. Even the Prime Minister mentioned this urgent need at the National Disaster Management meeting yesterday. I am concerned for our doctors and medical students --everyone forgets that doctors are human too. If you can arrange for one or two persons specializing in grief counseling to fly immediately to Apia, we will house and look after them. As a Medical School, we must not neglect this area in mental health. Let me know how you can help. 
We desperately need your financial support in order to proceed. Please click the button below and donate as much as you can to help our friends in Samoa. Rony Berger, a member of our trauma team in Sri Lanka and Bantul, Java will be traveling with me to Samoa as soon as funds are raised.
Thank you for all you do to help those in need.
William Spear
Please click the link below to help our friends in Samoa:
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