Help us to help others

How Adelaide’s Indian community chipped in

BY VINAYA RAI

It was a week before Christmas. We were planning to go to see the Lobethal Lights as we do almost every year. The town of Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills gets lit up during Christmas.

And then, shocking news… a huge fire was on the outskirts of Lobethal! This was too close to home. Lobethal is only about 40kms from Adelaide. The Cuddlee Creek fires that had been burning since 12 December were slowly getting controlled when the winds changed and it was racing towards Lobethal.

This is how Christmas was for most South Australians. Directly in the path of a massive fire or worrying about the people and firefighters in the regions.

This has been the biggest fires so close to Adelaide in many years. More than 125,000 hectares have burned in the Adelaide Hills. The perimeter of the fires was 127 kms!

On Kangaroo Island 200,000 hectares has been burnt which is nearly half the island. A holiday lodge at Vivonne Bay was lost along with other properties. The fire came within about 15 kms of the island's largest town of Kingscote. This was unprecedented.

Finally with some rain and cooler conditions on 10 January, the firefighters were able to stop its further spread. But not before the fire had burnt for 2 weeks, claimed 2 lives and dozens of houses and hundreds of other buildings.

One of the reasons for fairly quick relief work has been said to be the involvement of the army. “In an unprecedented move, the Australian Army’s 1st Armoured Regiment has just loaded six Armoured Personnel Carriers on to the SeaLink ferry from Cape Jervis to Kangaroo Island,” MP Leon Bignell posted on Facebook on 9 January. About 100 reservists had also arrived earlier to assist the 200 firefighters.

A military water purification plant also arrived on Kangaroo Island after the island’s water supply was damaged by the fire would be able to supply about 250,000 litres of water per day.

The efforts of people volunteering or pooling in to help in the relief work have also been massive. Several Facebook pages collecting donations have seen huge contributions. Indian organisations like the Adelaide Tamil Association, Telugu Association of SA, Punjabi Association and the Gurudwaras, the Ganesh temple and many other organisations have held donation drives and contributed to Mayors’ pages or to organisations like Red Cross etc.

The Telugu Association (TASA) held a Bunnings Sausage Sizzle and all profits were donated to Premier’s Relief Fund. Indian restaurants in the Adelaide Hills and nearby suburbs have offered free food for people affected by the fire.

The BAPS community organised a quick drive for animal care provisions.

Shivagarjana, the Marathi drummers, decided on a donation drive with drumming in Rundle Mall which attracted a lot of attention (of course!) and donations too. This was such a great effort that a follow-up event was immediately planned for Glenelg Beach.

The Sikh community collected enough to fill a truck and a van with things needed by the firefighters, relief workers and the population like non-perishable food, gloves, medical and veterinary supplies etc and took them over to Kangaroo Island in person. It’s been comforting to see the community stand together to help those in need.