AmeriCares: Facts & Figures

AmeriCares India Program Initiatives

AmeriCares India Focus on Disasters

Response * Preparedness

Emergency ResponseAt the forefront of providing immediate medical relief

to victims of natural disasters across India

NDMA’s request to AmeriCares

India on 9th August 2010

AmeriCares’ Team in Leh 12th

August 2010

AmeriCares India Warehouse - Bhivandi

Orissa Floods 2011

Sikkim Earthquake

2011

Kosi Floods, Bihar

Cyclone Aila – 70 % were suffering from diarrhoea and scabies - epidemic levels.

North India Floods 2010 (Uttaranchal, UP, Bihar, J&K)

Disaster preparednessAmeriCares India not only responds to disasters,

but also contributes to capacity building for preparedness by continuing to provide medical assistance and education

to improve community health outcomes.

Disaster Management and Disaster Preparedness Training Program in India

NewYork-Presbyterian's team as faculty for Disaster Management drill in Ahmedabad, India

In 2008 summer, Ahmedabad was struck by 17 terrorist blasts within 90 minutes. Two of the bombings involved its Civil Hospital, which participated in the 2007 drill.

Mumbai – MEMEx Preparedness (Nov 08)

Hospital Disaster Workshop – HCG, Bangalore

Building and Equipment Damaged Staff (Doctors and Nurses) evacuated and safe

On May 12, 2008 a magnitude 7.9

earthquake killed 69,222 people

injured 374,638

AmeriCares provided

state-of-art fully

equipped interim Field

Hospital

Guangyuan Prefecture Health Bureau, China

2. Wenchuan People’s Hospital Xuankou Branch

Indira Point, Nicobar Islands (southernmost point of India)

Post Tsunami

2004

Tsunami – A&N, India

Disaster Preparedness – A&N

Jarawa Tribe, Andaman

Nicobari Tribe, Nicobar

Earthquakes every year• 500,000 detectable • 100,000 felt by humans• 100 cause damage.

Can Animals Sense Earthquakes? The National Geographic 2003

• 373 B.C.,“animals (rats,snakes and weasels) deserted the Greek city of Helice in droves just days before a quake devastated the place.

• 1975, Chinese officials evacuated Haicheng, a city of one million, based on observations of strange animal behavior.

• Days later, a 7.3 magnitude quake hit. Estimated deaths averted 150,000.

Mongolia, China, 2003 – Strange Pre-Earthquake Occurrences

• large earthquake hit Chifeng, a city in Mongolia.

• Prior to that, villagers reported that they saw water spurt more than six feet into the air from a river bed that had been dry for many years.

• Cellphone signals disrupted 10 hours prior to the quake in an area about 90 miles from the epicenter (abnormal terrestrial magnetic waves).

• Pigs were agitated and attempted to escape. • Flocks of sparrows and swallows flying haphazardly

and flew into walls and other obstacles (unable to navigate properly)

Great Sichuan Earthquake, aka Wenchuan Earthquake• 2008, Sichuan Province, China

– Spectral Clouds – water vanished from a pond– Toads migrating through streets

http://modernfolktales.com/natural-disasters/earthquake-stories/earthquake-warning-signs/

Great Sichuan Earthquake, aka Wenchuan Earthquake

• Warning signs ignored by local authorities of Sichuan Province, China

• 8.0 quake struck on May,12th 2008

• Killed > 87,000 people.

Can Animals Sense Earthquakes ?

Animal Warning Signs• Catfish moving violently, • chickens that stop laying eggs • bees leaving their hive in a panic • dogs howling in the night mysteriously• caged birds becoming restless• nervous cats hiding.

Nature Magazine• NATURE probes evidence that animals may

have senses allowing them to predict impending natural disasters.

• Ablility to “hear” infrasound, — sounds produced by natural phenomena, including earthquakes, volcanoes, and storms, that are inaudible to the human ear.

• Animals’ sensitivities to electromagnetic field variations. (catfish being the most sensitive)

Geologist Jim Berkland’s

Method of Predicting Earthquakes

• Increase in missing pet advertisements in newspapers

• high correlation with major earthquake strikes

• Increase in missing dogs listings, beached whales and homing pigeons losing their way.

• Coincided with the highest tidal force in 3 years.• Berkland phoned the newspaper on October 13

1989• Loma Prieta earthquake struck on October

17,1989,at 5:04 p.m

Watch video on youtube

Earthquake Weather• Article in “New Scientist” – scientific basis ?• since 1973 higher occurrences of earthquakes between

magnitudes 4 and 6 coinciding with El Niño, a weather phenomenon that “raises the local sea level by a few tens of centimetres,

• The extra water weight increase the pressure of fluids in the pores of the rock beneath the seabed.v/s

• The heavy glacier theory - increased pressure counteracts the frictional forces that hold the rock plates together, and allows them to move against each other.

Mayan calendar

• Created in 3372 BC• Sacred Aztec Calendar - Eagle Bowl • Representing the solar deity Tonatiuh

• End of World predicted for 21st/ 23rd Dec 2012

Mayan TimePyramid

• 1st age ended with the animals devouring humans. • 2nd age was finished by wind• 3rd age by fire• 4th age by water• 5th (the present age) is called Nahui-Olin (Sun of

Earthquake)• began in 3113 BC and ends on December 24, 2011. • the last destruction of human existence on Earth.

• The date coincides closely with that of the ancient Chinese oracle-calendar, the I Ching (computer analysis by McKenna brothers - The Invisible Landscape)

NOSTRADAMUS, the most famous astrologer who ever lived, was born in France in 1503 and published his barely scrutable collection of prophecies, The Centuries, in 1555. Each four-line verse (or "quatrain") purported to foretell world events far into the future

• "In the City of God there will be a great thunder,

• Two brothers torn apart by Chaos,

• while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb",

• The third big war will begin when the big city is burning"

- Nostradamus 1654

Interpretation ?

• the City of God = New York City• two brothers torn apart by Chaos = towers

of the Word Trade Center• fortress is Pentagon• great leader is USA• the third big war = World War III.

Russia is building a huge underground city to hold 60,000 people, the YAMANTAU Mt Complex.

Norway has already built enough facility for their entire population to go under ground. 

Sweden. working with NATO has created an underground seed bank (a modern day Noah's Ark).

Bush family has made one of the largest land purchases in history for their own personal private compound in Paraguay (the only inland nation of South America)

Traditional Indian Knowledge

• based on the findings of six years of collaborative work with 14 villages of East and Upper Siang districts of Arunachal Pradesh

• Adi tribes have a rich knowledge related to biocultural resources, which plays an important role for the tribes in coping with weather anomalies and any abrupt climatic changes

Traditional Knowledge of Native American Indians

Recent Japanese Earthquake/ Tsunami/ Nuclear Disaster

Traditional Knowledge & Disasters

• Predicting Disasters would help reduce morbidity and mortality

• Modern scientific knowledge and traditional knowhow can be combined with practical benefit

• AmeriCares India has been using these insights to tackle disasters in India and the globe

• Greater understanding is possible by cooperation among all stake holders

Thank You !