There has been emergency relief donation prompts on social media sites about helping out those affected by the typhoon in the Philippines. For example, you may have noticed at the top of your Facebook newsfeed, you can easily donate $10.00 to the American Red Cross to send relief to the Philippines. At first glance, this may have come across as just another pesky advertisement, but it is so much more than that. This was and still is a heartbreaking natural disaster, affecting the lives of people around the globe.
The fact that we are not able to see the devastation firsthand shadows us from understanding that although the typhoon is gone, there is still much to be done.
Days after the initial information about the disaster, we start to lose interest in the story. This is not because we don’t care, it’s because we are here and the Philippines is over there. We don’t have to live with the reality that is all too real for the people of the Philippines.
In this article, I’m going to briefly explain what happened, and what is still happening in the Philippines. Many people do not grasp the concept that absolutely everything is destroyed, and they must start from scratch. All basic foundations of society are ruined, and people continue to die. This type of disaster takes many years to recover from; it does not simply end once the typhoon passes.
Typhoon Haiyan was the strongest storm ever recorded to hit land with winds reaching 195 mph. So, what happened? And what is happening?
Let’s start from the beginning.
A typhoon is defined as “a tropical storm in the region of the Indian or western Pacific oceans.” The Philippines region is no stranger to tropical storms, and experiences countless typhoons that pass through every year. However, this time the combination of the ocean waves and the gale-force winds was a formula for mass destruction.
*If you would like find a way to help, please visit: http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/09/…
Day 1: Friday, November 8
The town of Balangkaya, on the eastern coast of Samar Island in the central Philippines, saw 20 ft. high waves plummeting towards the island’s coastline with 195 mph winds. Within hours, Samar Island and its neighbor Leyte, were the two regions hit hardest by the typhoon.
Roofs were torn off buildings, trees were uprooted, and cars were flying into buildings. The residents had not expected the storm for a few hours, and were caught off guard, still sleeping at 4:40 AM. Many were found dead in their homes, and others were running to avoid the water and the debris. Hours later, the typhoon had made its way to the next island in the central region of the Philippines.
Day 2: Saturday, November 9
The eye of the storm brought calmness to the islands and the devastation of the storm was clear. Tacloban was hit the hardest by the most violent part of the typhoon. Bodies of the men and women, who were caught in the tidal wave, lay among the debris and rubble.
750,000 people were evacuated across the Philippines, and survivors were left to scrounge for food and search for their loved ones, who they lost in the storm.
Day 3: Sunday, November 10
An estimation of 10,000 people had been killed by the typhoon in Leyte alone, but since electricity was down, the communication of the widespread damage was difficult to obtain. Emergency teams were forced to reach survivors by foot, which delayed aid even further, because the airports and harbors were completely closed.
During this time, reports of looting and violence became a major concern in Tacloban because survivors were forced to rely on natural instinct in order to survive. To contain chaos, security forces tried to stop armed men from looting shops and warehouses for food, water, and other supplies. After warehouses were empty, residents turned to ransacking houses.
Day 4: Monday, November 11
Relief effort was there, but it was too slow. The estimated 10,000-figure death toll was reduced to 3,631 with more information. Nevertheless, the streets were reported as “littered with bodies,” and crime continued to rise everywhere.
Days 5 and 6: Tuesday, November 12 and Wednesday, November 13
As crime increased, security started to decline. Innocent people, including children, were killed, and everyone was doing their best just to survive. The first mass burial took place with as many bodies identified as possible, and there were still hundreds of bodies, starting to decay and smell, waiting to be buried. The land left was described as “desolate, apocalyptic and fetid.”
An NBC News quote from a survivor, “We can survive without these houses … we’ll sleep anywhere. But we need food. Only food,” she said. “No money, no places, no televisions, no cell phones, no technology. Food, we need food.”
According to the Red Cross, the preliminary number of people missing is up to 22,000. With the severe need for aid from the world’s leading countries, the United Nations humanitarian chief created an appeal for $301 million to help those affected by the storm. Many other countries and organizations have sprung into action by offering tens of millions of dollars to help.
The aid from the US included $20 million and the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which carries 5,000 sailors and 80 aircraft, and three U.S. Navy warships to provide food and water in Tacloban and Guiuan.
Day 7 and 8: Thursday, November 14 and Friday, November 15
The death toll continued to change approaching the weekend. Tacloban estimated 4,000, while the United Nations’ highest figure for overall dead was 4,460.
The Guardian writes, “UN aid chief Valerie Amos, who visited Tacloban on Thursday, described the distribution of aid as “far too slow” and said people had been let down by relief not coming in more quickly.”
Only a fifth of survivors were receiving aid, and thousands more were wasting away in abysmal conditions with no food and unclean water. The typhoon had destroyed any possible help that would make conditions better and receiving aid faster, making relief efforts difficult. Even supplies such as trucks were in limited, and had to be allocated to multiple different and important jobs. Transporting bodies alone takes many trucks, and many people to help move them. The estimated amount of bodies reported increases with each trip, and the more the bodies decay, the heavier they are to lift.
The most devastated areas of the Philippines had a high number of emergency volunteers but nowhere to house them because of all of the destruction. The amount of help by others is increasing, but the aftermath of the typhoon just doesn’t support any of the efforts.
Day 9: Saturday, November 16
As the days after the typhoon go by, more and more people are dying from starvation. The sad part of it all is that as countries rush to fly in aid, the air traffic becomes too thick, and in some cases the villages’ airports have to turn away planes carrying supplies to go on to the next area.
Aside from starvation, the medical need is growing extremely high, especially in the more rural areas. Members of an American medical team were able to reach Homonhon, a fishing island of 1,500 people. The residents of this island had not received any sort of medical help since the storm had hit.
A quote from a communications director in the New York Times, “They were in desperate shape,” she said, describing a range of untreated injuries and diseases, mostly advanced infections and ailments from a week of living unsheltered in the elements. Medics, she said, treated about a tenth of the residents.”
Day 10: Sunday, November 17
Food and medical aid continue to slowly reach towns, but remote villages still wait for the most basic supplies.
The official death toll rose to 3,637 and more than 1,100 people still remain missing.
More and more problems keep arising, and now there is the spread of disease among the survivors, most coming from the number of dead bodies among debris that have yet to be taken care of.
Info gathered from The Guardian, NBC News, The New York Times, Manila Bulletin