Mexico's Earthquake

[mohabessam]

Good evening good fellas,

Mexico is currently suffering from two earthquakes in one week, with around 300 casualties or maybe even more!

Is there anything the good people of Edgeryders can do in Mexico to aid, first of all, those under the wreckage and secondly, the families?

[matthias]

Not that much we can do from here, but fellow Edgeryder @elf_pavlik is in Mexico so let’s point him to some best practices for community based disaster response we developed over the years. (This started in 2015 from @natalia_skoczylas’ and my time in Nepal, our earthquake experience there being 8.1 and 7.3, respectively )

(1) Our “original research” paper, from the 2015 earthquake in Nepal:

Volunteer-Driven Disaster Response in Nepal

In the first time of Future Makers Nepal, we were mostly concerned with assisting the relief work after the earthquake (for obvious reasons …). This is slowly coming to an end, and we wanted to share with you some updates we prepared that summarize what we learned about “grassroots-organized disaster response”, in Nepal and in general. The first part of what we learned is what actually happened on the ground: who were the disaster response volunteers, how many, what did they do etc… Please find…

(2) Applied to the 2015 floods in Tbilisi, Georgia:

How-To for Community-Driven Disaster Management

Our fellow Edgeryder @Inge is in Tibilisi and today reported live from the major flood that hit the city. Several people died (8 confirmed atm) and a lot of animals. I can’t help with the clean-up efforts on the ground but I’d like to share best practice recommendations for community-driven disaster response. We have observed these over the last 6 weeks of the Future Makers Nepal project, an initiative together with UNDP Nepal which so far researches community-driven disaster response…

(3) Applied to the 2017 monsoon floods in Nepal:

Crisis mapping with open source tools: The case of the 2017 monsoon floods in Nepal

Remember the citizen-driven disaster response in Nepal, after the 2015 earthquake? We need that all over again right now because there are larger-than-usual floods. Not much we can do as Edgeryders (as we’re mostly around Europe), but maybe this: Sumana and her group of citizen crisis responders in Nepal have asked for the following maps: maps to figure out which areas are hardest hit (ideally recent satellite images) population density maps of the affected areas, for prioritization of relief …

Elf, hope you are well and the material is somehow useful. Let us know is we can assist in a more specific way!

[alberto]

Elf “marked himself as safe” on Facebook. Yes, Elf, we are following this from a distance…

[Nskocz]

I am volunteering to help fundraising a bit - we managed to raise money for a couple of shelters and supplies while in Nepal. Let me know @elf_pavlik if I can help with it

[mohabessam]

I came across this open call for volunteers to design and rebuild shelters and furniture for the affected ones in Mexico. Hope it helps those who want to take action

[johncoate]

My wife is leaving tomorrow morning for Mexico City for seven weeks. By coincidence she has planned this trip for months to have a language immersion experience. As it turns out this is all right in the heart of Mexico City and Puebla. And I will join her there right after I return from Brussels on Nov 2 until Nov 9. She will be updating me daily on what is happening there from her perspective.

[mohabessam]

Please do include us in such updates John.
All the best.

[johncoate]

Will do. She just arrived there a few hours ago. She did notice that her hotel room had a couple of big cracks in the walls…

[johncoate]

She just posted this on FB:
Went walking in my neighborhood in CDMX yesterday. Cuauhtemac to Roma Norte to Condessa. Will post some pix when I can. It is striking how the neighbors have mustered. Sidewalks are cleaned, debris is neatly stacked, private trucks haul off waste, citizens offer services to each other:massage for stress, face painting to keep kids occupied Every block has several donation centers. Whole groups of teens show up with donations of food or bicycles then stay to help. you can find the biggest damage bu looking for the caution tape and rows of police. And tents for services and for shelter. There are separate shelters and donation stations for pets. I saw some buildings still being excavated, with more dead expected to be found, but hope is still strong. There are stories of some survivors after 2 weeks after the last big quake. There are posters all over with cards pens and pins to sent messages of hope and strength. The local schools are still closed so the parks are full of children all day. There have been thunderstorms every night. The people unharmed are scared. For many young people it is the first time they faced death and it changes them. Some have already moved away. Some are coping with stress. Others are rethinking their purpose. It’s noted that the hustle of traffic is calmer now. But they wonder if the shifts in perspective will continue.