Imagine waking up in the dark, early hours of the morning. A deep, horrendous noise comes from the earth. Suddenly your house, bed, and belongings start shaking violently. Those few minutes become the longest in your life, as you scramble with your family looking for safety.

This horrible experience happened hundreds of times to the people in southwest Puerto Rico, after three earthquakes and their aftershocks hit on January 6th and 7th. As the wave of tremors rocked the island and its fragile infrastructure, power and water were knocked out for hundreds of thousands of people for days. The ground is still trembling, and thousands of people are seeking shelter in makeshift camps.

This is a humanitarian crisis that demonstrates how little the island has advanced in its struggle to rebuild since the devastating hurricanes of 2017. And once again, it exposes the vulnerability of this part of our country, and how little the administration is willing to help. Just as the response to Maria fell short, yet again this administration has dragged its feet in expediting aid to the island, with President Trump signing a major emergency declaration only yesterday.

Oxfam has been active in the earthquake response while also continuing our ongoing work in the overall hurricane recovery. Since the earthquakes, we have been coordinating with those on the frontlines to assess damage and give support. We're also working with organizations to help provide mental health support and tent distributions.

While the US federal government has been slow to respond – most federal recovery funds from 2017 still haven't reached Puerto Rico – Oxfam is again working with the people of Puerto Rico to build back more resilient and sustainable systems thanks to supporters like you.

Read more about Oxfam's ongoing recovery efforts in Puerto Rico.

Since Hurricane Maria, we've worked with partners in Puerto Rico to support long-term recovery efforts. To address the lack of reliable clean water following the Hurricane, we held workshops to train community leaders on development and application of low cost methods for water treatment and rapid water testing. With our Puerto Rican partners, we co-founded an innovative water alliance to help rural communities restore water systems, often with solar-powered pumps.

We're promoting alternative energy solutions, which will be all the more important in the wake of this emergency and subsequent damage to the electrical grid. In coordination with local partners, after Hurricane Maria we provided 22,271 solar lights to households without power and brought solar-powered systems to rural grocery stores and households in isolated areas. This work has only been possible thanks to the support of the generous Oxfam community.

We're also scaling up our support for the Response Innovation Lab, which was founded after Hurricane Maria to connect humanitarian actors with academics, communities, and others and bring innovative solutions to post-disaster settings. This collaborative model has proven to be extremely effective since Maria. In light of the recent earthquakes, this model will continue to be urgently needed to respond with new approaches that build the resilience of Puerto Rican communities.

Our work doesn't stop there. We're still advocating on Capitol Hill and with the administration, fighting for a just recovery for Puerto Rico and for the release of all long-overdue hurricane recovery funds. We continue to push for more public input in the development of recovery plans, so that all community members can have a voice in how their neighborhoods are being rebuilt and how federal recovery dollars are being spent.

We're proud of the support the Oxfam community has shown for Puerto Rico – both in the immediate aftermath of these natural disasters and as they recover to be more resilient. Together, we're helping communities survive disasters and rebuild stronger than ever.

The Oxfam community's generosity and willingness to help the millions of people devastated by this disaster has been nothing short of incredible. As Puerto Rico endures its long road to recovery, Oxfam will continue to assess the needs, support ongoing recovery efforts, and work to ensure the voices of Puerto Ricans are heard. If you'd like to help, you can make a donation to support our work in Puerto Rico today.