Relief workers head to Haiti.
Global Medics staff Sean D'Souza carries boxes of medical supplies that will be transported by volunteers from the local charity to Haiti in an effort to help earthquake victims.
Staff photo/ANICE WONG
A team of emergency workers from Toronto armed with water purification units is taking the first flight out Thursday morning to earthquake-devastated Haiti.
Early reports indicate thousands dead in Port-au-Prince after one of the most powerful earthquakes to hit the region slammed the impoverished nation, pummeled buildings into crumbling rubble and choked the air with grey dust.
Global Medic, an Etobicoke-based disaster relief organization, has mobilized to send a team of six tomorrow, including a paramedic and water technician along with water purification units and tablets to provide clean water for thousands of Haitians.
"Providing clean water is critical," said Matt Capobianco, Global Medic's manager of emergency services. "Without clean water, people can get cholera, diarrhea. It only increases the load on hospitals."
The United Nations reports extensive damage to infrastructure, including water, electricity and communications in the Caribbean nation's capital.
At Global Medic's Albion Road-Hwy. 427 office Wednesday afternoon, Capobianco and others loaded and shrink-wrapped cartons of water purification tablets called Aquatabs onto skids. Some 4.2 million tabs will be shipped to Haiti. Each tablet can purify one litre of water.
Additionally, 170,000 water purification sachets will be shipped. Each sachet can clean 10 litres of water.
Some 60,000 sachets of an electrolyte replacement called ORS will also be shipped.
Capobianco said he expects to fly to Haiti in four or five days to help support the Global Medic team led by the registered charity's director Rahul Singh that heads out Thursday morning.
Singh immediately began calling the charity's roster of approximately 500 volunteer paramedics, police officers, firefighters and engineers mere hours after the quake hit, Capobianco said.
Global Medic's rapid response team will pack supplies in carry-on luggage to provide affected Haitians with clean water within hours of landing, Capobianco said.
A 22-foot by 42-foot inflatable field hospital may also be onboard the flight to restore medical infrastructure to the hardest hit areas.
The team is set to leave Pearson Airport on a 6 a.m. flight Jan. 14.
Ten of Global Medic's smallest water purification units, the size of a briefcase, will also be sent, each capable of supplying 1,000 people a day with clean water. One of the medium-sized units will also be sent. It can provide 35,000 people a day with clean water.
The team will remain in Haiti for 14 days. There, they will train people locally to use the supplies, which Global Medic will donate.
"The operation will continue likely for months, for as long as needed," Capobianco said. "We'll continue to provide support from here."
Global Medic last dispatched a relief team to Haiti in September 2008 in the wake of devastation wrought by Hurricane Ike.
Mayor David Miller said in a statement Wednesday he has contacted the honorary Haitian Consul General in Toronto to determine how Torontonians can best assist the relief efforts.
Miller urged Torontonians wanting to make a donation to relief efforts to contact the Red Cross at www.redcross.ca or 1-800-418-1111. Toronto informed Ottawa its HUSAR (Heavy Urban Search and Rescue) team is at the ready to assist if requested.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said he has contacted the federal government to offer assistance to the people of Haiti.