GREAT LOVE ACROSS THE TAIWAN STRAITS

#Rice, clothing and blankets were provided, and 97 houses for flood victims were built in Rongshui, Teng County, and Xijiang Farmstead

In the summer of 1994, southern China was devastated by severe rainstorms. The worst flooding in fifty years submerged numerous fertile fields and made thousands upon thousands of people homeless.

In October of the same year, Tzu Chi relief teams went to one of the hardest-hit areas-ongshui County, Guangxi Province-to distribute relief supplies to more than 52,000 flood victims. In December, Tzu Chi went there a third time to deliver rice and more than 28,000 comforters to survivors and over 2,200 comforters to poor students from six high schools.

In addition, floods that swept Daxinpou in Guangxi Province and Buchuanshan and Chiu in Xijiang Farmstead leveled almost all the houses. The foundation decided to build new houses for survivors. In October 1994 ground for the houses was broken, and in June 1995 the completed houses were turned over to victims, who could from then on live in strong, warm houses.

Chou Pei, director of the Quanjiao Taiwan Affairs Office who took part in the distribution, said that the high efficiency, sincerity, integrity, trust, honesty and gentle manners shown by Tzu Chi people should serve as good examples for people on the Chinese mainland. Tzu Chi volunteers' "teaching Buddhism by concrete actions instead of by words" had evidently made a deep impression on the Chinese people across the Taiwan Straits.

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