Macau Red Cross on standby

The Macau Red Cross is on standby to provide disaster relief efforts should Macao Water not have the water situation under control by this morning, the organization told the Times yesterday.

Joao Manuel Ambrosio, vice-president of directive council of Macau Red Cross, said a contingency plan has already been drafted to import water from organizations outside of Macau that are prepared to help.

“We hope and believe that the water situation will improve by 9 or 10 p.m. tonight,” said Ambrosio yesterday. “We haven’t taken any immediate action yet because we are confident that Macao Water will solve the situation satisfactorily.”

“We have a contingency plan in place to supply water to vulnerable people,” he continued, “since we have already contacted organizations outside Macau [who are] prepared to answer our appeal.”

A decision will be made early this morning on whether to implement the contingency plan.

The Times also contacted the charity’s Hong Kong branch who said that they are keeping in close contact with several Macau organazitions. Hong Kong Red Cross has thus far provided some clothing to affected residents and home cleaning services to elderly people

Other organizations in Macau were assembling volunteers to help with other relief efforts, such as cleaning the streets.

The Young Macanese Association is organizing a volunteer group through their Facebook page, with a ‘cleanup event’ planned for this afternoon, starting at 3 p.m. They will gather at the HSBC near Red Market to allocate teams to the city’s various districts.

The Times has also received reports of individuals taking it upon themselves to clean the streets of debris and assist the police and other public services on an ad hoc basis.