Guest Post by Kathryn Dunmore, Red Cross Blogger
Photo courtesy: Korean Red Cross
On April 16, around 9 a.m., a ferry carrying 476 people sank off the southwest coast of the Republic of Korea. Among the passengers were 325 students accompanied by 15 teachers.
The Korean Red Cross mobilized and deployed its volunteers that day with relief items and mobile kitchen vehicles to the disaster. With hundreds of families desperately waiting for news of their loved ones, Red Cross provided comfort, such as warmth and emotional support. Dozens of Korean Red Cross volunteers provided hot meals, blankets and whatever comfort they could to those looking for loved ones on board the sunken ferry, one of South Korea’s worst shipping disasters in recent years.
In the city of Ansan, close to Seoul, a gymnasium was turned into a makeshift reception centre, where a Red Cross emergency mobile kitchen was providing hot meals to hundreds of family members while more than 50 volunteers and staff distributed 500 blankets and various other relief goods.