The Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) (French: Équipe d'intervention en cas de catastrophe (EICC)) is a rapidly deployable team of 200 Canadian Forces personnel. It provides assistance to disaster-affected regions for up to 40 days. DART's headquarters is located in Kingston, Ontario. DART was created by the Canadian government in 1996 in the aftermath of the inadequate response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when Canada's aid arrived after the peak of a cholera epidemic. The government determined that it would be of the utmost importance in many disasters if it was able to rapidly deploy a group of people until long-term aid arrived. DART has an annual budget of , although during specific incidents the Parliament of Canada can choose to temporarily allocate millions of dollars to DART to fund their response effort. For example, Operation Torrent, the aid mission to Turkey in the wake of the 1999 earthquake which left 17,000 people dead, saw used by DART in the response. Missions The Canadian government decides whether or not to send DART after a request from a country or the United Nations. Typically, upon a request from the government of the affected country, the Canadian government will dispatch its four to seven-person Canadian Disaster Assessment Team (CDAT). The CDAT members are from Global Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence (DND). For all humanitarian assistance/DART missions Global Affairs Canada is the lead department representing the Government of Canada. The CDAT will assess the situation and submit its recommendations back to the Government (of Canada), who will decide if the DART can or cannot be of assistance. If it agrees to provide assistance, it will dispatch an additional group of 12-19 personnel who form the Humanitarian Assistance Reconnaissance Team (HART) who will make preparations to receive the remainder of the team into the affected area. Critiques Although DART's goals may be well-intended there have been critiques of this program. It is costly, which comes with the nature of military intervention. Furthermore, although it does align with Canada's foreign policy of the three Ds (defence, diplomacy, and development) it does not help with the global health inequity. Operation Central (Honduras), 1998 In October 1998, Hurricane Mitch, a category-5 hurricane, struck Central America over a period of three days. As a result, 6,000 people died and over a million were missing or made homeless. DART situated themselves in the middle of the