# Britons raise £20 million for Asian tsunami floods appeal

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/12/30/britons-raise-20-million-asian-tsunami-floods-appeal/
- Published: 2004-12-30T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The BBC reports this morning that the emergency appeal for victims of Boxing Day’s
floods disaster around the Indian Ocean has raised over £20 million already.
This
early total makes it one of the most successful emergency appeals to date. The figure
was boosted considerably following yesterday evening’s TV and radio appeals. “Hundreds
of thousands of telephone pledges” were received as a result on the 3,000 telephone
lines that the DEC has set up for their donation hotline. Even before the appeals
though £5 million had been donated by phone and online.

 

 

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A further £5 million was donated overnight: DEC’s Chief Executive Brendan Gormley
told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning that, by the time he left the office
at midnight last night, 400,000 telephone calls had been received and £15 million
had been donated by phone and the Web.

 

 

At midday today the DEC’s Web site was continuing to struggle under the enormous
surge of traffic it is receiving, so the number of online donations is almost certainly
fewer than it could have been. It is to be hoped that an Internet firm will step
in and help the agency handle the massive attempt to donate by using more advanced
server load balancing and other technology expertise.

 

 

By this afternoon the DEC reported that it had received more than 524,000 phone 
calls.

 

 

The total of public donations already exceeds the initial amount of £15 million 
in aid promised by the UK government.

 

 

The figure of £20 million does not include donations to other UK aid agencies, nor
corporate donations of equipment or expertise such as the US$1 million (about £522,000)
worth of equipment donated by digger firm JCB and the £1 million donated by communications
company Vodafone.

 

 * **[DEC Asian floods appeal income rises to £25 million](https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/12/30/dec-asian-floods-appeal-income-rises-25-million/)**(
   30 December 2004)
 * **[Online donations outstrip phone gifts by US donors to Asian appeal](https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/12/30/online-donations-outstrip-phone-gifts-us-donors-asian-appeal/)**(
   30 December 2004)
 * **[Rapid public response internationally to Asian floods appeals](https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/12/31/rapid-public-response-internationally-asian-floods-appeals/)**(
   31 December 2004)