Blogs

Los Topos search and rescue team in a destroyed home in a Nepal village on the border of China, searching for survivors in the rubble. Sixteen Los Topos volunteers were dispatched sent to Nepal by Volunteer Ministers headquarters in Los Angeles.

Three VM teams had been dispatched by UN Kathmandu HQ to outlying districts where there was hope there were still survivors. One group was attached to a Canadian K-9 corps called CASDDA (Canadian Search and Disaster Dogs Association). Another was the Los Topos team from Mexico.  All the teams were headed to villages four hours out from Kathmandu.

After a UN meeting with all of the relief teams, we have broken up into groups to search the outlining villages—apparently, people are still stuck and sending text messages. We are heading 4 hours east of Kathmandu to a village that no one has been to yet. We've joined a canine rescue team from Canada and the Firefighters without borders from Spain. Calling this bus "full" would be an understatement. We will likely not have service for the next 24-48 hours. No knowing how long we will be in the outskirts.

We are staying in the heart of Kathmandu assisting the local Volunteer Ministers in several disaster zones. We are working alongside local law enforcement agencies in cleanup, food distribution, aerial footage, and disaster assessment.

We did an early morning mission into the devastation in Kathmandu. Most of the city seems OK but the areas that are affected are bad and are like very eerie ghost towns.

There are five story buildings that have been flattened to two, killing everyone inside. And the stench of dead bodies on occasion is hard to deal with especially when you can't access them. On every building, there are shattered exterior walls threatening to collapse any second. It's pretty dangerous as there are tremors that could cause further collapsed.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers are distributing food and water in Kathmandu where tens of thousands are sleeping in makeshift camps on the street in the wake of the 7.8 magnitude 25 April earthquake. The death toll has topped 5,000 and many more thousands are injured. And entire regions outside the nation’s capital are inaccessible with no estimate of the casualties.

Travel in Kathmandu has been almost impossible with roads blocked by bricks, concrete and entire sections of buildings that fell down on them. People are stranded without supplies, food, unable to reach their homes and families.

Our Volunteer Ministers are working with a team of scouts, clearing debris from a major road so traffic can get through.

Meanwhile, another team of Scientology Volunteer Ministers erected their bright yellow tent to serve as a headquarters for VM activity.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers receive President's Volunteer Service Award at the Church of Scientology's Fort Harrison

On April 15th, 15,000 hours of volunteer service by 16 individuals and groups was rewarded with the President’s Volunteer Service Awards at the Church of Scientology’s Fort Harrison.  There were over 200 guests in attendance representing 40 different volunteer organizations.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers, who are members of Los Topos (the Moles), joined their colleagues in responding to the disaster. Los Topos is the highly acclaimed Mexico search and rescue group who, like moles, burrow under collapsed buildings to rescue survivors.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers, part of the famous Los Topos search and rescue team, responded to the blast that left seven dead and dozens injured.

For three days in overnight sub-zero temperatures, some 200 rescue workers searched through the rubble of the Cuajimalpa Maternity Hospital in Mexico City. Reported in the March edition of Freedom Magazine, some 80 percent of the hospital was destroyed by a blast in the early morning of January 2015.