'T.O. team brings aid to cyclone-hit villages'

A volunteer team of Toronto paramedics, police officers and firefighters are working day and night to bring food, water and medicine to the coastal regions of Bangladesh obliterated by Cyclone Sidr.

The huge storm killed 2,500 and displaced upwards of a million people.

The Toronto team is working in the Saud Khali region.

“We're basically feeling like we're at the end of the world here. Many roads and century old villages have been wiped out and getting to these people is only accessible by boat,” Rahul Singh a Toronto EMS paramedic who is leading the disaster relief and rescue team in Bangladesh for Global medic, said by telephone.

The team has set up a field hospital to treat 1,000 patients a day. Two large-scale water purification units are providing clean drinking water for more than 50,000 people. The team has 2.8 million water purification tablets and a million tablets of essential drugs.

They are also installing portable water purification systems and field clinics in inaccessible areas.

“People are living in makeshift shelters the size of 2-by-3 feet made with branches and palm leaves. If they're lucky they have a piece of plastic or cloth as a roof,” Singh said.

“We've also been burying bodies. The waterways are filed with bodies and carcasses of animals,” said Singh.

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