Trained volunteers provided assistance ranging from coordinating relief, to acting as a fire department auxiliary.

With permanent offices in the field, UNICEF is well placed to coordinate relief by road and air.

The U.N. is also by far the best choice to coordinate humanitarian relief and reconstruction aid in postwar Iraq.

"Normally, three weeks after an earthquake, people are generally dead or they're O.K.," said Rachel Lavy, the World Health Organization official coordinating medical relief.

Mr. Armour's team had gone to Yogyakarta two weeks ago to coordinate relief for a possible eruption of Mount Merapi, a volcano north of the city that has been stirring lately.

The Sri Lankan government, meanwhile, has allowed international aid agencies to coordinate relief with the Tamil separatists.

Titan hung in orbit over the planet, helping to coordinate rescue and relief as the survivors of the apocalypse made their several ways to the surface they had avoided all their lives.

The Dominican Red Cross coordinated early medical relief in conjunction with the International Red Cross.

Paul calls for the elimination of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is tasked with coordinating preparedness and relief for natural disasters.

VillageReach was founded in 2000 by Blaise Judja-Sato in Seattle, Washington, who got the idea while coordinating relief for flood victims in Mozambique.