THE Philippine Red Cross (PRC) has expressed gratitude to the Nepal government and a United States rescue group for saving two Filipino mountaineers trapped on Nepal’s Mount Manaslu after a 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit Nepal on April 25.
PRC Chairman Richard J. Gordon identified the two Filipinos as Mendel de la Cuesta and Edward Sampelo, who were stranded atop Mount Manaslu, the eighth tallest mountain in world, days after the tremblor.
“I would like to thank members of the Nepal government and the US rescue group who airlifted these two Filipino mountaineers trapped on Mount Manaslu namely, Mendel de la Cuesta and Edward Sampelo,” Gordon said in a statement.
He disclosed that the two are now being accommodated by the PRC Team in the established PRC base at Hotel Platinum in Kathmandu.
Last week the PRC sent two teams to provide assistance in quake-hit Nepal.
The first team deployed was a 13-man search and rescue team from the PRC Emergency Response Unit. It is assisting the Nepal Red Cross Society in the search and rescue and retrieval of trapped victims from collapsed structures.
All of the team members are highly trained and experienced on collapsed structure search and rescue and urban search and rescue. The team members are also trained and experienced emergency medical technicians and firefighters.
The PRC also sent a medical team composed of two volunteer doctors from Makati Medical Center and three volunteer nurses from PRC chapters. The team joined the contingent from the Canadian Red Cross that set up an emergency field hospital to provide emergency medical care to the vulnerable population affected by the earthquake since hospitals in Nepal are overwhelmed by the volume of patients.
The medical team from the Philippines was instructed to concentrate on providing maternal and child health care, with capability to provide surgical operations. Members of the Philippine team are highly trained and have been previously deployed in other operations, such as in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda.
The PRC is set to deploy a third team of volunteers, which will make this the largest ever delegation of Filipino Red Cross volunteers to work in concord to assist in the rescue, provision of water and sanitation to prevent outbreak of diseases, as well as psychosocial support.
Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco