Birmingham mosque praises response to earthquake appeal

A Birmingham mosque has collected donations to fill two shipping containers to send to Turkey and Syria following the devastating earthquakes.

Birmingham Central Mosque organised the appeal, working alongside Ummah Care Foundation to deliver the donations.

Project coordinator Sakeeb Haq, said they had to stop taking donations on the third day of the appeal due to the "phenomenal" public response.

More than 44,000 people died after quakes devastated both countries.

A further 6.4 magnitude tremor struck near Antakya in Turkey on Monday, where earlier quakes, 7.8 in magnitude, had hit both countries on 6 February.

Mr Haq said donations had "exceeded" initial expectations, with teams working long hours to check, catalogue, repackage and label all items.

The donations of food, clothes, nappies, toiletries and other essentials are expected to take two and a half weeks to reach survivors.

"We have been exceptionally fortunate, the combined efforts of the community have been overwhelming," Mr Haq said.

He said the the large amount of donations meant one container could be shipped to Turkey from Wednesday, with a second being shipped to Syria on Thursday.

"We have decided to send one to Gaziantep, as close to the epicentre as possible, and the other will go to Syria," Mr Haq continued.

"There are two large rooms full of donations at the mosque and we are also using a container on an articulated lorry and a smaller container for storage."

The team will have three hours to load up the first container when it arrives at 16:00 on Wednesday, he said.

A group of up to 50 volunteers will help load the donations before the container leaves at 19:00.

Volunteers took over a large part of the car park to create a one-way system to drop-off donations, all while major construction work at the mosque has been taking place.

Mr Haq said the community was doing all it could to help those affected.

"You look at the images, you read the stories and the narrative is just heartbreaking," he explained.

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