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SAMOA
TO FOLLOW OUR TRAUMA TEAM'S 2009 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. The government confirmed almost two hundred dead and many more injured. 10,000 people were affected by the tsunami. This represents an enormous percentage of the total, small population of Samoa. There were many people in shock as there has not been anything like this in living memory.
Forty villages were 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 were left homeless. People were living in makeshift shelters, camp areas set up by the Red Cross and with host families. While much agency response and attention focused on Indonesia after the earthquake in Sumatra, Samoa was also in need of urgent assistance.
Skilled trauma teams from Fortunate Blessings Foundation responded in 2005 to a similar emergency in Sri Lanka following the major tsunami when most agencies rushed to Thailand. We also traveled to Java following the earthquake of 2006. In the same way, we needed 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. 
As a result of your generosity. Roni Berger, a member of our trauma team in Sri Lanka and Bantul, Java traveled with me to Samoa.
Thank you for all you do to help those in need.
William Spear
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