As the severity of the Myanmar cyclone becomes clear, the British Red Cross has joined other leading charities to fundraise jointly under the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) umbrella.

More than 22,000 people are now confirmed dead and at least 40,000 missing, with more than a million displaced.The Disasters Emergency Committee will broadcast a national appeal for the DEC Myanmar (Burma) Cyclone Appeal today (8 May).

Huge generosity

DEC chief executive Brendan Gormley said: "Our members are there and need the UK public to show huge generosity to help them reach those thousands of people who have seen their lives and livelihoods uprooted by this disaster."
 
World Vision, the Red Cross and Save the Children are among the charities who have a long-term presence in Myanmar and their teams have responded since the cyclone struck on Saturday. They are already distributing clean drinking water, hygiene kits and emergency relief supplies and aim to scale this up in the days to come.

A joint British and Swiss Red Cross emergency response unit (ERU) is set to fly to Myanmar this weekend to help deliver goods to the most vulnerable. One of the team, Kris Flegg, from London, had been waiting for a phone call telling her she is being deployed to Myanmar.
 
"I'm on the on-call rota this month, so when I heard about the disaster I thought it would only be a matter of time before we would be deployed," she said.

Experienced emergency response 
Kris, who worked with the ERU in Kenya after severe floods in 2006, will help set up systems for the logisticians to receive and deliver relief items.
 
"I know there will be some horrific scenes but I feel prepared to face that as I've had some excellent training with the Red Cross."
 
Kris worked with team leader Ina Bluemel in Kenya and has worked remotely with logistician Gareth Tate as part of the tsunami programme in Indonesia. The fourth member of the team is Rodney Stone, air operations, who joins the ERU for the first time.

For donations, please visit www.dec.org.uk or phone: 0870 60 60 900

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