Just when we thought Queen B couldn’t bless us any more with her fierceness, elegance, talent and philanthropy, Beyoncé did it again. This time around she teamed up with J Balvin and Willy William to deliver the best remix of the summer hit “Mi Gente.” In the track, you can listen to the Houston native sing some verses in Spanish, join the chorus, and even dabble on some French.
The diva will donate her proceeds from the collaboration to hurricane and earthquake relief charities including CEMA, UNICEF and Somos Una Voz for Puerto Rico, Mexico and other affected Caribbean islands. On her website, she also lists all the charities and organizations that are helping the devastated areas, with a link to all of them if you also would like to make a donation.
“We’re heartbroken by the hurricanes and earthquakes that have devastated families around the world,” she wrote. “There are many ways to help. We’ve listed a few organizations that are on the ground from Mexico to the Caribbean, lending a hand to those who need it most.”
The world has been impacted with a slew of natural disasters lately. Hurricane Irma was the strongest hurricane observed in the Atlantic since Wilma in 2005. It was the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands on record, followed by Hurricane Maria only two weeks later.
Irma hit Antigua and Barbuda , Saint Martin , Saint Barthélemy , Anguilla , Saint Lucia , Barbados , Guadeloupe , Saint Kitts and Nevis , British Virgin Islands , U.S. Virgin Islands , Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Turks and Caicos Islands , The Bahamas , Cuba and Florida.
The storm caused catastrophic damage in Barbuda, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Anguilla, and the Virgin Islands as a Category 5 hurricane. As of September 27, the hurricane has caused at least 124 deaths, including 44 in the Caribbean and 80 in the United States.
Hurricane Maria hit Dominica as a Category 5 hurricane, Puerto Rico as a Category 4 hurricane, and is currently threatening North Carolina and parts of the Mid-Atlantic. Maria caused catastrophic damage during its journey across the Northeastern Caribbean.
Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico in the morning of Wednesday, September 20 as a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph. Although at 5 p.m. ET, Maria had weakened significantly to a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph, it left a trail of devastation in the island, ripping roofs off buildings, filling homes with water, and knocking out power to the entire population.
A little over a week after the catastrophic natural disaster, getting relief to the island has been difficult. Supplies can only be transported by air or sea. Puerto Rico mayor Ricardo Rosello said to CNBC that despite all that, deliveries are getting better. He also added that the island’s power grid is destroyed, leaving the entire island in the dark, and diesel fuel is scarce. According to San Juan mayor, Carmen Yulin Cruz , two people died in the hospital because they had no diesel for their life support system. The fuel is desperately needed to run generators for emergency services.
The communications infrastructure has also been decimated and there’s no landline or cell phone service. Rossello said he has deployed "runners" to report back on the needs of the various towns and cities. He said he's also "personally deploying" satellite phones to local mayors. He added that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been responsive to the plight of Puerto Rico with federal and local first-responders working as "one team."
Also suffering from Hurricane Maria’s devastation are Dominica, Guadeloupe, U.S. Virgin Islands, Martinique, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, Dominican Republic and Haiti.
To make matters worse, on September 19, 2017 a 7.1 earthquake struck Mexico. It was epicentered approximately 34 mi south of the city of Puebla. The earthquake caused damage in the Mexican states of Puebla, Morelos and the Greater Mexico City area, resulting in the collapse of more than forty buildings. Although Mexico's SASMEX earthquake warning system provided 20 seconds of advance warning in Mexico City, 342 people were reported killed throughout the region (including 203 in Mexico City), and more than 6,000 injured.
This all came after Hurricane Harvey devastated Texas in August, and also affecting Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Grenada, Suriname, Guyana, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize and the Yucatán Peninsula.
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