A massive student fundraising campaign to provide relief for Indian earthquake victims continued to gain momentum yesterday, raking in about $1,500 from donations gathered at tables across campus.

The drive, sponsored by the International Relations Council (IRC), Bhumi, the South Asian Association and the Woodbridge Society of International Students, has raised an estimated $2,500 since it began Sunday, according to IRC President Sarah E.M. Wood '01.

Fundraising began in dining halls on Sunday, with tables added in Loker Commons and outside the Science Center Monday.

The initiative for the campaign came from Ambika Patni '02, whose parents and aunts live in India and felt the effects of the quake. Patni said the reports of devastation that she read in the newspapers and the first-hand accounts of her relatives gave her a feeling of helplessness that inspired her to seek a meaningful way in which she and the Harvard community could contribute to the relief work.

Patni said she contacted the leaders of the four organizations to see how willing they would be to sponsor such a drive and said that the response was overwhelmingly positive.

"This cause just fits naturally with the [kind of[work we do," said Mekhala Krishnamurthy '02, president of the Woodbridge Society.

All donations raised this week will be sent to Kutch Navnirman Abhiyan, a consortium of 14 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that was founded in May 1998 in response to a devastating cyclone that hit Kutch, Gujarat.

"We were thinking of giving it to large, international relief groups such as the Red Cross or Direct Relief International, but ultimately decided to donate to a domestic NGO that had been present in Kutch since the earthquake happened and that would be better in touch with what was most needed in the area," Patni said.