India: 'Our area is like Ground Zero' - emergency flood appeal

A bishop in India has described the areas engulfed by catastrophic floods last week, as 'Ground Zero'. Bishop Peter Celestine, bishop of Jammu-Srinagar said: "The State of Jammu and Kashmir has experienced the worst-ever floods in living history and our area is like Ground Zero. Bishop Celestine said that as a result of the floods the lives and livelihood of the people of the state, particularly in the Kashmir region have been completely upturned.

He said: "The Catholic Church needs to respond to this grim situation, We need to provide urgently, food and drinking water, (food: rice, flour, pulses, tea, sugar, packed milk or powder,m salt spices, refined oil, biscuits, breeds, jam) and bottled drinking water, temporary shelters, (tents) medicine, etc etc. for our families and other need households that are affected by the floods. Almost 90 per cent of Catholic/Christian families are badly affected besides severe losses to our own institutions.

SPICMA (Special Projects in Christian Missionary Areas) has sent £10,000 to Bishop Celestine today and 11,000 to the MHM Missionaries in the damaged areas in Pakistan.

To make a donation please see: www.spicma.org/