New Zealand Red Cross Secretary General Sarah Stuart-Black on why local-led disaster response and Kiwi generosity offer hope amid global crises.

In recent days, intense monsoon rains and a series of powerful storms have caused widespread flooding and landslides across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia. Rivers have burst their banks, entire neighbourhoods have been destroyed, and families have had to flee at short notice as water levels rose rapidly. Tragically, more than 1,400 people have lost their lives, with many still unaccounted for and millions affected across the region.

Since 1960, we’ve sent team members overseas on more than 1,000 assignments to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity on the front line.

Judy Owen is our longest-serving international delegate. For 40 years, she went into conflict zones with International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to provide humanitarian relief to the victims of war.

On Boxing Day 2004, a massive earthquake struck an area off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The 20-metre-high waves reached Aceh in northern Sumatra in minutes, where they smashed into the coast and destroyed everything three kilometres inland.