“Junta authorities have been collecting donations in Kengtung since March 25 (the day after the quake) but no relief items from them have reached the victims yet,” said a relief worker from the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), popularly known as the Lion party (for its logo) or the green skirt party (for its uniforms). “We therefore request all our brothers and sisters far and near for assistance.”

More than 300 houses have been damaged, some irretrievably, according to her.

When she was asked how the relief packages could go through official checkpoints, she said, “You worry about the relief items, we’ll worry about the checkpoints.”

A donor from Thailand told SHAN how the relief workers in Tachilek had passed through checkpoints without being searched. “We visited 11 offroad villages that day, including one Burmese village with 35 households, 14 of which were damaged,” he related.

In each village, either a monk or the village headman would inform the donors how many households there were. “The relief packages, the number of them corresponding to the number of households, would be laid down on the ground,” he recounted. “Each household representative would be called out by name to receive his / her package. It was very systematic and touching.”

A monk also asked them to donate plastic pipes so he could bring water from the hills to the 4 villages made up of 250 households.

In times like this, the role of the clergy, no matter what religion it professes, is important, he added, to restore the victims’ spirits back to normal. “They are frightened every time there’s an aftershock. On March 31, there were a total of 145 aftershocks. Nobody, including myself, slept under a roof that night.”

Mettatham in Maesai, SHAN and Chiangmai Literary and Culture Society are among Shan civil societies collecting donations for the quake victims in Thailand.