First flood relief flown to Santa Cruz and Sand Creek.

A flight to the Sand Creek area is here being loaded quickly as a case of appendicitis had to be air-lifted from that location this afternoon. Included on the flight were the following:

-Radio phone equipment to re-establish village communications (GT+T)
-750 lb of essential relief supplies from the including:
.Medical supplies and drugs (MoH)
.Water purification supplies (CDC)
.Dry food stocks (CDC)
.Cleaning and disinfectant materials
- the head of the village Women's Group (on behalf of the stranded Touchau)

The pilot did have enough time for the first assessment of some of the damaged houses, many of which had their mud brick walls collapse completely. Two feet of water swept through the area in a flash flood in recent days.

It was reported that another aircraft from Georgetown with officials on board had not been aware of the village/RAM project to build and certify an alternate, all weather airstrip some years ago. The old village strip is clearly unusable in such flooding conditions and the flight had been unable to land.

A second emergency patient (8 yo femur frx) could not reach any airstrip in time as his father could not bicycle the many miles with his wife holding the child in her arms. Will try again in the morning. An airstrip project with RAM is already under discussion for that village (Shiriri).

FB page for more pics