NEW YORK, USA – St. Vincent and the Grenadines has received an US$100,000 (EC$270,000) contribution from India to the on-going efforts to recover from the double-barrelled assaults of Hurricane Tomas in October 2010 and the April 2011 flash floods and landslides.
“In keeping with the close and warm relations between our two countries, the Government of India has decided to make a cash donation of US$100,000 to the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as humanitarian assistance,” India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations said in a letter to Vincentian ambassador Camillo Gonsalves this week.
Ambassador Gonsalves thanked the Indian envoy on behalf of the government and people of SVG, noting India’s own experiences with periodic monsoon flooding, a release from the SVG U.N. Mission said.
India joins Australia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Georgia, Pakistan, Qatar, Taiwan and the United States of America as countries that have made specific donations to SVG in the wake of Hurricane Tomas and, or, the April flash floods.
These countries have delivered most of the approximately EC$9 million pledged in humanitarian assistance to the government of SVG and various civil society organisations, the release said.
Hurricane Tomas and the April’s flash flooding each disaster caused damage of about EC$100 million, including the destruction of 98 per cent of the nation’s banana cultivation.
The 2011 Hurricane Season, which ends on Wednesday, has not produced any similarly devastating weather events for the people of SVG.