After hearing the horrible news about the earthquake that rocked Chile in February, students at Induk University felt they needed to show their support.

Student leader Pae Jung-un organized 27 students to gather donations from local businesses in the Nowon-gu area and then sold raffle tickets at 2,000 won each for the prizes.

At a presentation last week, students from the university’s Tourism and Leisure Management Department, along with the university president, donated 800,000 won ($713) to Chilean Ambassador Adolfo Carafi, just days before his departure.

“With natural disasters becoming more and more the norm these days, one starts to become immune to the fact that real people have to live through these tragedies,” said Carafi.

The 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile Feb. 27 and left 486 people dead and 79 missing.

“It is therefore welcome when young people, who have often experienced more of these images of disaster than previous generations, having been brought up more on images than words, take it upon themselves to care,” he said.

The idea came from a student who mobilized a group of freshmen to participate in a fundraising event for the victims of the recent earthquake.

“We are all interconnected. We have an expression in Korean which means ‘even a piece of paper when carried together becomes lighter,’” Pae told Carafi.

Induk University President Yun Dal-sun praised the students for their effort and said they exemplified the school’s spirit of “God First, Others Second, Myself Last.”

The earthquake in Chile was the fifth-biggest recorded earthquake in history and had an impact equivalent to 10 atomic bombs.

Though the exact cost of the damage is still unknown, it is estimated that $40 billion, the equivalent to the loss of a year’s export revenue, occurred.

“We wanted to raise funds for Chile because we know that after the earthquake in Haiti, other countries experiencing hardship tend to be ignored,” said Pae on why she was interested in fundraising for Chile.

The funds donated will be used to help rebuild a school in Chile. 

By Yoav Cerralbo (yoav@heraldcorp.com)