HOUSTON -- Houston Rocket Yao Ming is helping local families that are trying to get in touch with their relatives in China.
“I pray for them and all the people there and their family,” Ming said Wednesday evening.
Through the Yao Ming Foundation, the basketball great set up a free hotline for overseas Chinese to call their friends and relatives in Qinghai.
“That’s very important. If they have some people from there who are visiting somewhere else, maybe in the United States, and [we] understand they would like to contact their family. I would like to help,” he said.
Two years ago, after a 7.9 earthquake led to the deaths of 90,000 people in an area nearby, the basketball star donated $2 million for relief efforts. Some of the money was used to rebuild schools. Ming expects to help out in similar ways, but it’s still early to determine what needs to be done.
Wednesday morning’s quake happened along the same system of faults as the earthquake in 2008. According to Rice University Earth Science Professor Dale Sawyer, getting aid to this more remote area is going to take some time.
“When you are in a very, very distant place, hard place to get to, it can be very hard to come in and do the kinds of things we would anticipate in the United States when we would immediately move in,” Sawyer said.
But as soon as Yao Ming finds out what is needed in the earthquake-ravaged areas, the basketball giant says he’ll get to work and come up with a plan.
For more information, on how to use the free hotline please call iTalkBB Free hotline at 1-877-482-5522 or log into
.
To use the free hotline:
1. Dial the hotline access number：US users dialing 718-766-9636
2. When you hear an IVR, please dial the landline number or cell number you are trying to reach followed by a # For example：011-86-xxxxxxxx + "#"
