Update on relief activities Myanmar – June 9, 2008

Last week a convoy of 22 trucks of TNT Thailand shipped relief materials to Myanmar on behalf of the Thai Government. An extraordinary shipment that also raised a lot of media attention. Currently three colleagues are supporting the relief activities for the people affected by cyclone Nargis. Read their stories below.

Since last week Thursday David Tan, TNT Operations Manager from Singapore, is in Myanmar to help with warehouse coordination. David takes over the coordination of Agility’s Frank Clary, who has been in the country on behalf of the LET since the beginning of May. David is now responsible for coordination of the warehouse on behalf of the Logistics Cluster (coordinating body between UN-agencies, Red Cross, Red Crescent and big NGOs). Every day inbound and outbound shipments are done, although still on a modest scale. David says communication remains one of the biggest challenges in the country, as telephone lines are most of the time not functioning properly.

In the mean time Amadou Cissé, from the Eurohub in Liège, is supporting UNHAS with its operations in Bangkok. He says:” The staging area at Don Muang airport near Bangkok is operational and has taken over as the main hub for air transport of humanitarian items into Myanmar. Currently, two Ilyushin 76 and one Antonov 12s serve the air bridge. The first flight was on Saturday, the 24th of May and the capacity increased quickly the last few days. The first week it was very difficult due to the fact that there was no procedure implemented to settle correct air operations. The first week was very challenging, both mentally as well as physically, because I had to set up a procedure and an operational base for a routing of the cargo and other donations, as fast as possible.”

Yvette Aben, colleague at TNT Mail the Netherlands, is working at the information center of WFP in Bangkok:”I provide all parties with the latest information and answer their questions together with my colleagues. I answer telephone calls, e-mails and attend cluster meetings twice a week. I also try to get the right information from the air bridge. Sometimes the people have difficulties with proving the right information, than I sit down with them and try to put the right information together that we, for example, need to provide insight in the stock situation.”