As of Monday morning, the death toll from the Chile earthquake stood at 708. That figure is expected to rise and authorities aren’t expected to have a clear picture of the scale of devastation for another few days.

But with four SOS Children’s Villages in the greater Concepcion area, the charity are ready to immediately begin the relief effort, providing temporary shelter for unaccompanied children while also helping to reunify families and start the long recovery process.

SOS Children’s Villages have been in Chile for 45 years and has many years of experience dealing with the very real human tragedies caused by poverty, war and natural disasters such as earthquakes.

To people living in countries that rarely experience earthquakes, disasters on this scale can seem abstract, but their human toll is devastating.

Twenty-four-year-old Lurde Margarita Arias Dias and her baby, immigrants from Peru, died when their Santiago home collapsed around them.

Carrying her daughter in her arms, the young mother raced for safety at the first sign of the quake. According to her husband, they were buried in rubble before he could reach them.

With 13 active Children’s Villages and a full complement of kindergartens, youth facilities, and counselling centres for vulnerable families. Reports to date from SOS-Chile indicate that the earthquake caused structural damage to only a few of its Children’s Villages.

No injuries of children or staff have been reported. This leaves SOS in a strong position to offer help to earthquake victims living near its Villages.

As it is doing for earthquake victims in Haiti, SOS is using its decades of experience delivering emergency aid to children and families to create a plan to help victims of Chile’s terrible disaster.

SPONSOR AN ORPHAN IN CHILE WITH SOS CHILDREN’S VILLAGES