On Friday September 28, a series of powerful earthquakes hit the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia triggering a tsunami with devastating effects.
The earthquake alone destroyed buildings and moved entire neighbourhoods and as the water from the ensuing tsunami retreated into the ocean, the full scale of the destruction wrought became clear.
To give much-needed assistance to the victims of the Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami, PokerStars has once again partnered with global relief charity CARE International through The Stars Group’s corporate giving program ‘Helping Hands’ to raise money for their Indonesian Tsunami Appeal.
CARE urgently needs funds to provide essential aid to the many thousands in need of help and Helping Hands will match every dollar donated through the PokerStars software.
To make it easier for players to get involved, they can donate in two ways. They can use their Stars Coins via the Stars Reward Store to turn coins into dollars (2000 coins = $20 donation) or they can donate via a special page created by CARE International for credit and debit card donations.
More information on how to donate can be found on the PokerStars Blog.
More than 2,000 people are known to have lost their lives so far, with an additional 2,549 injured and hundreds still missing. Current estimates put 1.6 million people affected by the disaster and in need of assistance, with 72,000 currently displaced and staying in communal shelters, sleeping out in the open without access to clean drinking water, fuel or electricity.
CARE is aiming to support a total of 100,000 located in Donggala, a difficult to reach area where victims are amongst the least likely to receive the assistance they require. The immediate focus of the aid will be to provide life-saving drinking water, sanitation and hygiene kits, and shelter.