An amazing aid effort

Organisers of the Wiltshire Mercy Appeal are awaiting clearance from the Sri Lankan High Commission before making their next shipment.

The appeal, being run out of a hangar on Wroughton Airfield, was set up by businessman Manolito Chandos who owns a tile company in the village.

He said: "We have already sent about 400 tonnes, which is not bad for a little placed called Wroughton.

"Everything is rolling smoothly. Parcels and good are still coming in all day long.

He said that he was expecting to get the go-ahead for the next shipment today.

He said: "We have maybe up to 150 pallets ready to go.

"But we still need plenty of water, medical supplies, tinned food and baby food.

"At the top of the list is anything to do with medicine and water."

Mr Chandos is delighted with the response of local people.

He said: "You can't fault anything. For this place to become the biggest collecting point in the whole of Europe is just stunning.

"But it can't be done without all the people who have volunteered.

"At the weekend the average count was about 250 volunteers at any one time.

"It's been fun because it's been a community event, but at the same time we haven't lost sight of the purpose, which is the tragedy."

The items most urgently needed are blankets, linen, food, water purification tablets, wheat flour, pulses, rice and portable generators.

The most urgently required medical supplies are intravenous infusions, drugs, especially paracetamol, anti-biotics, dressings, suture material and disposable syringes.

l The Bangladeshi community in Swindon have put their heads together and come up with a plan to raise funds for the South East Asian appeal.

As owners of many of the town's Indian restaurants, they are planning to donate the profits from one evening towards the appeal.

Hanif Robbani, of the Saffron Spice Restaurant in Peamoor, said: "We have all got together and we are holding a charity night in all the restaurants in aid of the tsunami appeal.

"It's a gesture from the Bangla-deshi community in Swindon. We have all donated individually but collectively we want to get together and do something quite big.

"We hope people will come out and eat in Indian restaurants on the night."

Restaurants already involved in the scheme include The Jewel In The Crown, Rafus, Khyber, Mela and Lalbagh.

A meeting is to be held in the near future to decide a date for the event, which is expected to be later this month or early in February.

l Lloyds Pharmacy, which has several branches in the Swindon area, has pledged £50,000 to the relief fund.

The company is also organising collections and fund raising in its pharmacies for staff and customers.

l At Swindon Travel in Havelock Street staff have organised a collection and for every booking made this month they will be donation a percentage to the appeal.

Clare Somerville, travel adviser, said: "We're starting a collection in the office and for every booking that is made in January we are donating 0.5 per cent of the booking to the disaster.

"We all put our heads together to see what we could do to tell and we came up with the idea of putting jars on the table and asking for donations."

Owner George Norcliffe, said when the time was right they would be encouraging tourists to go back to the areas affected.

"Bearing in mind their economy was driven by tourism, we would like to put back a bit of confidence in the travellers to go back in to the affected areas when the time is right," he said. "It's too early to say when that's going to be. A lot of the affected areas are driven by tourism.

I'm hoping that by making a donation from the client's booking may be they will decide later to go to Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Most of us travelled there before, but none of us can imagine what is like now.

"The resorts only exist because of tourism."

Victims of the tsunami disaster will be remembered at a special prayer meeting held by the Hindu Samaj.

A collection will also be held for the massive relief operation now underway.

All are welcome at Drove Community Centre, Southamp-ton Street, between 6pm and 8pm tonight.

Sushma Patel, who has helped organise the event, said: "We just want to do as much as we can to help."