Sheza Hasan (L) and Kulsum Khan, members of the Canadian Pakistani community work filling boxes with food in a warehouse near Pearson Airport in Mississauga, Ont. August 25, 2010.
With 30,000 kilograms of food donated mostly by Toronto-area Pakistani-Canadians already jammed into its airport warehouse, Pakistan International Airlines says that for now it cannot handle more aid bound for victims of Pakistan's massive flooding.
Volunteers and staff with the airline and Pakistan's consulate in Toronto are scrambling to accommodate a widespread desire among local Pakistani-Canadians to send physical goods instead of cash, an impulse some attribute to mistrust of Pakistan's notoriously corrupt government.
As the flood crisis began, the consulate said food and other goods would be collected for PIA to take free of charge to Pakistan. Now, Muslim community centres designated by the consulate to take the donations are stuffed to capacity, said Waqar Rizvi, cargo supervisor with PIA in Toronto.
"Their warehouses are being backed up now and they are asking people to please hold on to their donations," Mr. Rizvi said. "We clear stuff, they send the stuff they are already holding, then they have room to take more stuff. The response has been overwhelming."
The airline has three flights - all Boeing 777s - from Toronto to Pakistan each week. Once passengers and their luggage are on board, each plane can carry an extra 10,000 to 15,000 kilograms of flood-relief cargo, Mr. Rivzi said. The first fully loaded plane left on Sunday night. Another left on Tuesday.
Once the backlog is cleared, "ready-to-eat" food, such as granola bars, will remain the priority, Mr. Rizvi said. Donations of clothes or other material will be turned back for now.
An Urdu-language instructional video on the airline's international website shows what to pack in a typical relief box, including bottled water, potato chips, soap and insect repellent.
Imran Ali, Pakistan's deputy consul-general in Toronto - who is trying to find volunteers to organize an overflowing warehouse at a Mississauga Islamic centre - said he would prefer that people send cash to a registered charity or to Pakistan's national relief fund.
However, donations to that fund - which Mr. Ali said has collected $100,000 so far - will not count toward the matching funds pledged by the Canadian government over the weekend. Neither will donations of food or other goods, as the program only applies to monetary donations to registered Canadian charities.
"We've asked for the exact procedure, but apparently it's only Canadian charities," Mr. Ali said. He added that Pakistan had not formally requested that donations to its national fund be eligible.
Still, he urged donations to Pakistan's national fund, which he said would help pay for helicopters to pluck survivors from the floodwaters.
"No relief agency, no aid agency, can save those lives," Mr. Ali said. "You have to have helicopters. ... So even though they might have reservations ... they will probably be saving lives if they contribute directly."
Mr. Ali said the response of the Pakistani-Canadian community and others in the Toronto area has been heartening: "It is really gratifying. At the same time, somehow, the scale of the devastation is so huge that sometimes it seems even this is like a drop in the ocean."
Large mainstream charities have complained of a slow response by Canadian donors to the disaster. Kevin McCort of Care Canada said on Wednesday that a coalition of major Canadian charities has raised nearly $1-million in donations from the public, up from $650,000 before the government announced its matching funds program last weekend.