Donations for Earthquake Aid Hit $30-Million

American relief organizations helping victims of the South Asia earthquake have raised more than $30-million, a figure that fund raisers say falls short of their needs.

However, charity officials say the donations represent an encouraging response when put into the context of the many other international disasters that have occurred in the last 12 months.

The earthquakes that demolished parts of Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan last month killed more than 74,000 people and left thousands more injured and homeless.

The fund-raising figure for the earthquake is dwarfed by totals for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, which have exceeded $2.3-billion, and by the response to last year’s tsunamis in South Asia, which reached $1.3-billion.

But fund raisers say comparisons to disasters in the United States or to an event as unusual as the tsunamis are unrealistic.

“If you just put the tsunami aside, we’re definitely seeing more private-donor response to the recent disasters, both in Niger and west Africa and with the Pakistan earthquake, than we have seen to previous disasters,” says Mike Kiernan, a spokesman for Save the Children.

He says earthquake giving has been assisted by news reports: “When people see homeless families in need facing a perilous winter, whenever those stories appear on CNN, people donate to us.”

In the first month after the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, for example, his group had raised only about $300,000. The charity has raised $3.9-million in gifts and pledges so far for the South Asia earthquake’s victims.

Pakistan Ties

Mr. Kiernan is also among the many fund raisers who credit Pakistani-American donors as the source of a large percentage of gifts.

Jennifer Norris, a spokeswoman for Relief International, in Los Angeles, says a recent fund-raising event for the group’s Adopt a Village program, which featured the Pakistani Consul General Abdul Hamid, Relief International’s CEO, and three doctors from the charity’s medical team, brought in $175,000.

Relief International will use the money to rebuild a village in Pakistan where its doctors were deployed following the earthquake. Relief International has raised a total of $625,000 for the disaster so far.

Mountainous terrain and the impending winter are shaping charities’ relief operations.

“The snow has not begun yet, but it’s just a matter of days or weeks, so assessment teams are working at the very highest elevations first,” says Carol Miller, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross.

Ms. Miller says that some people in the region affected by the quake have migrated to lower elevations and are setting up spontaneous refugee camps. Others, she says, are reluctant to leave their homes and livelihoods, and nonprofit organizations are scrambling to find enough winterized tents — or other alternatives — for those who have chosen to stay.

Among the fund-raising results from organizations across the United States:

• The American Red Cross, in Washington, has raised $4.7-million in gifts and pledges.

• Mercy Corps, in Portland, Ore., has raised $4.5-million.
• Islamic Relief USA, in Burbank, Calif., has raised $4-million.
• World Vision USA, in Federal Way, Wash., has raised $3.2-million.
• Catholic Relief Services, in Baltimore, has raised $2.7-million.
• CARE USA, in Atlanta, has raised $2.2-million for the earthquake and has also raised $235,000 for the mudslides in Guatemala and El Salvador.
• AmeriCares Foundation, in Stamford, Conn., has raised $1.3-million.
• International Rescue Committee, in New York, has raised $1.16-million.
• Oxfam America, in Boston, has raised $900,000.
• Direct Relief International, in Santa Barbara, Calif., has raised $423,000.
• International Aid, in Spring Lake, Mich., has raised $400,000.
• American Jewish World Service, in New York, has raised $201,835, of which $130,197 came in online.
• Lutheran World Relief, in Baltimore, has raised $144,000.
• Brother’s Brother Foundation, in Pittsburgh, has raised $43,000.