A York businessman’s appeal to raise money for victims of the Turkey earthquake has raised more than £700 – and counting.
Okan Ok of York-based tea company Hebden Tea says people have been coming into his shops in Shambles and Minster Gates to make donations, as well as buying special bags of English breakfast tea for £3.30 each - with every penny raised going to disaster relief.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake and a later a 7.5 quake, which both struck on February 6, have claimed the lives of more than 35,000 people in south-eastern Turkey and Syria, with the death toll expect to rise as buildings are finally cleared.
The natural disaster reduced thousands of homes and buildings to rubble as people slept, with scenes of the rescue effort reported by news channels across the globe.
Hundreds of thousands of people too frightened to return to their damaged homes have also been left sleeping in the open – or in cars or makeshift tents - in often sub-zero conditions.
Okan, who went to school in Istanbul and whose parents still live there, said the survivors urgently need food, supplies, medicines, blankets and other necessaries such as nappies.
He said people had been calling into his shops to make donations, and also buying special £3.30 bags of English Breakfast tea – with every penny donated or raised from the sale of the special bags going to AHBAP, an independent Turkish charity that has people working on the ground across the disaster area providing immediate disaster relief.
Okan said he planned to keep his appeal going for at least another couple of weeks.
“There are desperate people out there,” he said.
International aid and help was finally beginning to get through to some of the worst affected areas, he said. “But money is still desperately needed to help.”
Within days of the earthquakes striking, the British public had helped the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal raise more than £74 million.
Among those making a donation was King Charles, who this week met volunteers from the UK's Turkish community sending aid to their homeland, and expressed how "deeply sorry" he was.
- To support Okan’s York appeal, visit hebdentea.com or visit one of his shops – Hebden Tea in Minster Gates and Shambles, and the Hebden Tea Experience in Shambles – and buy his special 50g bags of English Breakfast Tea.
- You can also donate to AHBAP directly at ahbap.org/disasters-turkey
- To support the DEC appeal, visit dec.org.uk/appeal/turkey-syria-earthquake-appeal
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