Asia Pacific

The excited chatter from the waiting crowd quiets down the moment the brightly-dressed performers take the stage. The subject of the play is nothing poetic or Shakespearian, but the audience is eager, understanding the gravity of the messages to be conveyed in the performance. The play will be about preparing for floods and landslides.

Riki, 11, was asleep when a strong earthquake shook his home in Pidie Jaya District of Aceh, Indonesia in the early morning of December 2016. His house collapsed over him and he was trapped.

The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society is mobilising volunteers to support government efforts to stem the country’s worst-ever outbreak of dengue virus disease and provide medical assistance at overstretched hospitals.

Ganeshmaya Dannekhu, 72, wakes up every morning at 5am to clean her small shed and feed and milk her cow. She then sets off for the local dairy to sell her milk, arriving no later than 6:30am. With typically nine litres of milk to carry, it’s a strenuous 20-minute walk to the dairy from Jhaukhel, her village in Nepal’s Bhaktapur District. Many of the buildings in the village were severely damaged by the massive earthquake that hit the region in April 2015.

Three weeks of non-stop heavy rain is triggering flash floods and landslides across parts of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan and causing widespread damage and destruction to homes and infrastructure. Red Cross teams are responding in the most affected areas.