Spate of disasters empties Red Cross coffers

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A string of recent weather-related calamities across the United States has left the American Red Cross low on cash and struggling to provide aid to disaster victims, officials from the premier US charity group said Tuesday.

"Our disaster relief fund is empty, but there's a lot of need out there and the Red Cross is responding," Suzy De Francis, the chief public affairs officer for the American Red Cross, told AFP.

More than 11 million people in nine midwestern states have been affected by extreme weather and the worst flooding in living memory in recent weeks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has said.

The Red Cross has responded to tornadoes in Kansas, and floods in Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana and West Virginia in...