The fleeing refugees who had survived the violence in their homeland were now threatened by starvation, lack of sanitation, cholera, and other deadly illnesses. Combined with these perils was a season of natural disaster in the form of destructive floods. Predictably, most of the victims succumbing to the hardship were children.

The Indian Government estimated the cost of caring for the refugees at $1 million a day. Foreign aid provided only a fraction of the desperately needed food, equipment, and medicine. It was in this dramatic context that George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, and their fellow musicians decided to rally worldwide support for relief efforts in Bangladesh -- thereby averting an even greater humanitarian disaster.