Hours after a killer mudslide covered the Philippine village of Guinsaugon Feb. 17, Baptists were scrambling to determine ways to help the victims there.
“We have been trying to make contact with colleagues in the Philippines and Asia to see if they know of any Baptists active in the relief effort,” said Paul Montacute, director of Baptist World Aid (BWAid).
At press time, Richard Gordon, head of the Philippine Red Cross, put the estimated death toll at 300, with 1,500 missing, according to CNN.
A mountainside soaked with unusually heavy rains crumbled and plowed into the village, 420 miles southeast of the Phillipine capital of Manila, on the island of Leyte. The sludge swallowed hundreds of houses and an elementary school, burying throngs of people under three stories of mud and rock.
“One hundred percent of the area is completely covered with mud,” Gordon said from Geneva, after having spoken with Red Cross representatives who had arrived on site. “Of the 300 houses in the area, only three are left that are not covered.”
The Alabama Baptist made attempts to contact International Mission Board (IMB) personnel in the region, but at press time, there was no response.
According to IMB officials in Richmond, Va., none of their workers were in the affected area at the time of the slide. One missionary couple is positioned three hours from the disaster site, but just after the mudslide, no specific plans had been made yet for how or when relief would be sent.
BWAid also waits for the information necessary to specify what sort of aid is needed.
“Hopefully information from the area will be forthcoming, and we will then consider whether or not to make a grant and/or launch a special appeal,” Montacute said. “We only launch a formal appeal once we know that we have an outlet for the funds.”
Any funds BWAid receives will be channeled through one of five Baptist World Alliance member bodies in the Philippines, he noted. (TAB)
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