AllChile.net Earthquake Relief Flights (day by day)
- Thursday, 4th March 2010: Charles announces on the forum that Vince Beasley has offered the use of his plane (a Cessna 206) for relief aid and that there are two doctors available to help. He puts together the AllChile.net Earthquake Relief Flights program. Money starts rolling in immediately.
- Friday, 5th March 2010: Forum members spread the word and money continues coming in using PayPal and local Chilean bank accounts. In the evening, PayPal blocks payments as the Forum is not a registered charity causing. The Forum finds alternate ways to bring in money including others users accounts and Western Union. The Chilean government offers licenses to our two foreign doctors allowing them to formally practice medicine in Chile. Hanger space is secured at the airport and organization begins with the help of Mayor University on logistics to distribute warehouse full of supplies provided by the collectivos (shared taxi service) of Temuco.
- Saturday, 6th March 2010: The airplane leaves Puerto Varas in the morning towards Palena airport to pick up Dr Charles Whiting and family. They are flown to Puerto Montt where a government agent serves them with their medical licenses. The airplane arrives in Temuco at around 5:00pm. Hotel Bayern in Temuco generously provides an apartment for the doctors and their family, and a single room for Vince. The plane is quickly loaded with water to beat the 6:00pm curfew and flies to the town of Tirua. The main issue they encounter is problems with water supplies as wells and water sources have been contaminated as much as 12 or even 20 km upstream of the ocean, and people are resorting to drinking out of the rivers. One of the doctors, Charles Whiting, spoke to a pregnant women who informed him that her children were getting sick from the water. 9 other planes join the AllChile.net Earthquake relief Flights project from the Temuco Flying Club.
- Sunday, 7th March 2010: Foggy conditions delay the first flights out of Temuco. After a meeting at the Temuco Flying Club, the team is given a green light to land anywhere including roads. There is another flying club that has been given the Concepcion north coastal areas. The AllChile.net Earthquake Relief Flights project will be covering the coastal areas south of Concepcion. Operations began with recon flights to find available landing strips. Unfortunately, there were weather difficulties throughout the day and the team was grounded and had to spend the night in Los Angeles. However, they did manage to do a lot of recon flights and they did distribute goods wherever possible.
- Monday, 8th March 2010: With weather conditions clearing, the team headed early morning to the Los Angeles Flying Club. With the assistance of “Un Techo para Chile”, the plane was re-stocked and they flew out directly to Isla Mocha. “We took the doctor in to the town, and we went to one of the camps to talk to the people there and visited the small clinics to talk to the doctor there and see what they all needed”, said Charles. They don't have a permanent doctor in Isla Mocha, and although there were doctors on the island none where planning to stay beyond the day. The wave by some miracle came literally to the back door of the clinic and stopped, and even wiped out houses next door and all around it.
Charles also mentioned that “The biggest issue is sanitary related issues. We have about 200 people living in tents and make shift shelters on a hill. Most are so traumatized they refuse to go down to the town. They are afraid another wave will come. We are working on getting physiologist out there.”
While the team was in the town, Vince helped search for a little girl and her mother that where swept away by the wave. “We were met at the plane door by the uncle who was just desperate. He asked Vince if he could just give him 15 minutes up in the air looking. Vince did a full search pattern around the island and the ocean looking for about 30 minutes. No luck!” Some other pilots also took the uncle up, and the military was sending in a dive team. Vince helped get them and their equipment to the island.
Vince flew to the mainland about 15 minutes away to run several aid shipments and to help the NGO's such as reps from Un Techo para Chile get to the island while the ALLCHILE.NET Earthquake Relief Flights Team toured the island with the doctors by foot.
- Tuesday, March 09, 2010: The ALLCHILE.NET Earthquake Relief Flights Team will continue to fly out supplies and relief aid to Isla Mocha. Charles and Christian Whiting, the two team doctors, will be spending at least a week on the island and perhaps more. Dr Christian Whiting will be accompanied by his family including two children. The idea is that this will be their base to provide some sustained medical services until this initial crisis passes. If they are needed elsewhere, they will be flown from the island to the required locations. Charles Beasley (Vince’s brother) will also join the doctors on the island. He is a boat builder and will help asses the damage of the boats in Isla Mocha and possibly put together a plan on how to salvage the vessels. It is estimated that 80% of the fishing boats have been destroyed and that is the main source of income on this island. Zandra and Charles are back in the head office trying to establish alternate towns to operate out of so that the weather does not cause delays in the operation.
In order for this relief aid to continue, AllChile.net is asking for donations to help with fuel, medical supplies and basic supplies. Charles is asking for donations to be made via Western Union (Charles Spencer, Temuco, Chile). Western Union announced this weekend that there will be a “no transfer fee” on money transfers sent to Chile from participating Agent locations in the U.S. until the 19th March 2010. For details and locations, please go to www.westernunion.com. If you do make a donation by Western Union, please email law@spencerglobal.com to let them know. They were receiving funds using PayPal but as they are not a registered charity, PayPal blocked their account. This has since been resolved but