Relief supplies for Fiji

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33062, 1 November 1972, Page 3

Relief supplies for Fiji

Thousands of dollars worth of relief supplies, hurriedly collected from Christchurch warehouses yesterday, will leave this morning for Fiji.

A United States Military Airlift Command Starlifter has been made available to carry the goods. They will be used for relief from the effects of hurricane Bebe, which devastated Fiji and surrounding groups of islands last week.

Most of the supplies in the airlift have been provided by the New Zealand Red Cross Society, according to the sec-retary-manager of the North Canterbury centre (Mr R. J. Lipscombe), although about $ll,OOO worth of goods were supplied by the local branch of C.0.R.5.0.

Mr Lipscombe said that both organisations had had less than 24 hours in which

to collect items from Christchurch warehouses. The Red Cross disaster relief team had been kept busy all day ordering goods and ferrying them to Christchurch Airport for loading into the Starlifter. Supplies provided by the Red Cross Society include tinned meat, fish, split peas and lentils, flour, clothing, 800 pairs of - blankets, 15 tons of roofing iron, rice, fish hooks, and antibiotics. C.0.R.5.0. is sending 10 bales of clothing, five tons of milk powder, 50 cases of cod fillets, and 125 cases of canned peas. FOOD URGENT The supplies were requested by the Red Cross coordinator in Fiji (Mr R. J. McKerrow). ■ “The most urgent need in Fiji at present is food,” Mr Lipscombe said yesterday. “We may possibly send a disaster relief team into the area later with pne of our ; Land-Rovers, but at the mo-

ment we are catering for the most urgent needs.” Mr Lipscombe said that so far $1392 has been received in Christchurch for relief work in Fiji, and of this $lOOO came from the National Council of Churches. U.S. HELP Major D. T. Chase, the officer in charge of the U.S.A.F. detachment at Harewood, said yesterday it was fortu-

nate that an extra Starlifter happened to be at Christchurch.

“It was on a training mission for new pilots. The Starlifter had brought cargo for the Antarctic support operation to the city and was to return to the United States virtually empty,” Major Chase said. “It should have returned today, but once the Red Cross request was made we managed to get M.A.C. headquarters back in the States to agree to a delay of one day.” The North Canterbury branch of the Save the Children Fund has decided to send supplies to the value of $2OOO to be split evenly between the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and Fiji to help hurricane victims. Mrs N. J. McPhail, the branch’s publicity officer, said yesterday it was hoped that the money would be translated into the necessary relief supplies as soon as the next airlift of goods was made to the area. COLLECTION The Catholic Overseas Aid Committee’s chaplain (the Rev. J. Curnow) said yesterday that there would be a collection in every Roman Catholic parish in the Christchurch diocese on Sunday for aid to Fiji.