The Greater Toronto Area’s Chinese community is joining forces to send aid to parts of their homeland devastated by this week’s earthquake and continuing aftershocks.
“We were very, very emotional,” said Bang Gu Jiang, president of Toronto’s Sichuan Association of Canada, named for the province rocked by Monday’s earthquake.
“We had to accept the shocking news and we were trying to find out if our families, relatives and friends were sound and safe.”
Her organization and others across Greater Toronto have created the China Sichuan Earthquake Relief fund to funnel money to the Chinese Red Cross for relief efforts.
Donations can be made to Account 04009072 at Bank of China branches across Canada.
“There is a sense of urgency,” Jiang said yesterday after a media conference in Scarborough. “We have to do something now.
“Alone we are not strong enough. We want to help as a community. We join you, or you join us, it doesn’t matter. We must work together to maximize the result.”
Jiang, who has been in Canada for 20 years, still has family in Sichuan. away from the quake zone. They all escaped injury, she said.
Charles Jiang, a financial adviser in Toronto for 12 years after coming to Canada from Sichuan, said he has been unable to reach his sister in the capital, Chengdu, about 90 kilometres from the quake’s centre, since aftershocks rumbled through the area. “My parents are safe there, but many people here are worried about their families,” he said.
