Ghetto Fire in Phnom Penh, Cambodia - Jun 2008
On 11 April 2008, a fire broke out in a poor community of Reussey Keo district that completely destroyed at least 450 houses. More than 700 families including house owners and renters lost their homes. The fire, which lasted about 7 hours, left some injured casualties but no deaths were reported. It was just days before the start of the Khmer New Year. Most of the families had locked up their homes and returned to their villages to celebrate the occasion.
Affected families were struggling to salvage their belongings from their houses during the incident but almost all families did not manage to save their properties because of the immense fire. The wooden houses were built next to each other in a disorderly manner causing the fire to spread faster. It also prevented the firefighters from entering the scene in time to put out the fire.
On 12 April 2008, one day after the incident, there was still no response from the government. Some NGOs entered the area and began to provide immediate assistance. Caritas Cambodia immediately provided water supply and organized the people to form a committee that can work with different organization who helped. The health rescue team from the Ministry of Health was also stationed in a camp to provide treatment for the victims.
On 13 April 2008, Cambodian Red Cross along with the municipality provided short term food assistance including rice, food items, tents and money to 487 families to temporarily secure their living condition for at least 15 days.
A personal appeal was sent out to friends in Singapore to help the fire victims. Kind sponsors responded and donations were collected and sent to Phnom Penh on 16 May 2008. Donations were handed to Caritas Cambodia for distribution, as personal distribution may cause chaos amongst the affected victims. Caritas Cambodia formed a committee to register families who were affected by the fire and they are able to identify families who need more help than others.
Donations Qty/Amount Sponsor/Donor
Blankets 50 pieces SIA Commercial Supplies
Clothing & toys 90 kg Various Donors/SATS
Slippers & shoes 170 pieces SATS Ground Staff
Biscuits & noodles 244 packets SATS Ground Staff
Cash $2550.00 Various Donors/Friends
Cash $2000.00 Happy Angels
Our personal experience at the slum house area… It was on 16 May 2008, a sunny day but it had been raining for the past few days before our arrival. The journey took about 30 minutes on the tuk-tuk from the city. We reached the slum area, which was burned to ground on 11 April 2008, what remained was some wooden structure and heaps of rubbish. We walked down and reached the temporary site where the victims are being put up. The ground was muddy and dirty, it was a challenge to balance on bricks laid on the muddy ground to access the area. Plastic tents are used as makeshift shelters for the families.
We entered by the side ‘entrance’ and met a few villagers. Some of them had set up stalls selling food, tidbits and other stuff that they used to sell in the slums. They are quick to settle down to the new place and started living their lives again. They know that they cannot afford to just sit and do nothing about it as they have young children & elderly to look after. Life still goes on despite what had happened...
The 2 NGOs who are helping the victims are Cambodian Red Cross and Caritas Cambodia.
www.caritascambodia.org
www.redcross.org.kh
The Red Cross distributes food rations to victims, which is sufficient for them. Caritas Cambodia is helping them with other aspects such as working with the government for a piece of land to re-accommodate the victims, sanitation and hygiene issues. They have also registered all the families who were affected by the fire. Hygiene is a major concern as we thread through the muddy pathways with rubbish next to tents.
We visited the Caritas office soon after that to discuss how we can help. After which, we went to the wholesale markets to get necessary items for them. Caritas distributed donations to families on 28 May 2008 (Wednesday). As we were not around, a representative from RiverKids Foundation went down and helped with distribution. We know people from RiverKids Foundation very well and had been working with them for a few years now.
Caritas Cambodia supplemented our donations with their own contributions and donations from other sponsors in Phnom Penh. Personally, I feel that some of the victims are coping well. Some of the families are very well taken care of by their relatives and some even have property elsewhere. So we decided to spend on necessary items to families who were identified by Caritas to be poorer.
Reported by Evon Ng
