John Doak of The Warehouse sorts out the hundreds of tents bound for China. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Thousands of tents made in China are heading back to where they came from as millions of earthquake victims continue to seek shelter.
The Warehouse has taken its entire stock of tents from stores nationwide and is sending them to the victims of the May 12 earthquake, which
killed more than 67,000 people and left up to five million on the streets.
Tent cities have been erected in places such as Sichuan and Mianyang cities, where millions of people are homeless.
More than 1200 tents will be airfreighted to China today, after the Chinese Embassy in New Zealand sought to buy as many tents as possible from The Warehouse, to aid China's disaster response.
The Warehouse chief executive Ian Morrice said: "Obviously we do a lot of business in China - in fact all these tents were originally manufactured there, so it's appropriate for us to do what we can to help in this situation."
The tents range from small two-person tents to larger sizes, including family-sized pop-up tents which can fit as many as eight people.
Mr Morrice said: "As soon as we received the request, we arranged for every tent on our stock list to be recalled to Auckland at our cost and offered the Chinese Embassy a substantial discount on the purchase," he said.
Meanwhile, Wellington Phoenix Football Club will play a charity match with Christchurch United on Sunday to raise funds for victims of the earthquake.
Wellington Phoenix Chinese midfielder Leilei Gao said: "This is a great way for everyone to show their support for the victims of China's earthquakes as well as the chance to watch a good game of soccer."
