Typhoon Haiyan: Philippines declares state of calamity
BBC News online -- 11 November 2013
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from Tacloban where families have to bury their own dead
The
Philippine President Benigno Aquino has declared a state of national
calamity to speed relief efforts for victims of Typhoon Haiyan.
In a statement, he said the two worst affected provinces, Leyte and Samar, had suffered massive destruction and loss of life.Thousands of survivors are still desperately waiting for the aid effort to reach them.
Up to 10,000 people are feared to have been killed.
Tacloban is one of the worst affected cities. The BBC's Jon Donnison, who is there, says there does not yet seem to be an effective operation to get help to those in need.
This is expected to change over the next few days, he says.
"One shirt. That's all I'm asking for": The BBC hears survivors' stories
The BBC's George Alagiah reports from a makeshift distribution centre at Manila airport
One of the most powerful storms on record to make landfall, Haiyan - named "Yolanda" by Filipino authorities - struck the coastal provinces of Leyte and Samar on Friday.
It then headed west, sweeping through six central Philippine islands.
At the scene
The northernmost tip of the island was hit by the storm. At the moment, it is dark. The only light is coming from a half moon and the glow of fires that people have lit outside their homes amid the rubble of wood and metal that they have taken from their houses and piled up by the side of this dirt track road.
We've seen, coming up this road, houses that have been flattened, debris strewn everywhere, trees down. Everyone we have spoken to has said that further on up that road, it gets steadily worse and worse.
All the power has gone from here on up to the north of the island. We've seen huge numbers leaving this area - bus after bus full of people. Many of them are standing, with their possessions, heading for Cebu - a functioning city just two and a half hours down the road.
More than nine million people
have been affected in the Philippines. Many are now struggling to
survive without food, shelter or clean drinking water.
- The exposed easterly town of Guiuan, Samar province - population 40,000 - is said to be largely destroyed
- Three-hundred people were killed in the town of Basey, also in Samar, the provincial disaster office confirmed
- Tacloban, Leyte province, was largely flattened by a massive storm surge and scores of corpses are piled by the roadside, leaving a stench in the air as they rot. Hundreds of people gathered at the airport desperate for food and water, others trying to get a flight out
- Disaster worker Dennis Chong told the BBC that assessments in the far north of Cebu province had shown some towns had suffered "80-90% damage"
- Baco, a city of 35,000 in Oriental Mindoro province, was 80% under water, the UN said.
A huge international relief effort is under way, but rescue workers have struggled to reach areas cut off since the storm.
However, reports from Tacloban say that soldiers have been on the streets distributing food and water to some residents and the US military has sent marines to the city.
The head of the Philippine Red Cross, Richard Gordon, described the situation as "absolute bedlam".
"It's only now that they were able to get in and we're beginning just to bring in the necessary food items... as well as water and other things that they need," he told the BBC.
Aerial footage shows devastation in Tanauan, Tacloban and Cebu
A Philippine military spokesman was quoted as saying on Monday that 942 people had died in the typhoon's aftermath, though it is clear the official death toll will rise significantly.
Some 660,000 people have been displaced, according to UN figures, among a total of 9.8 million affected.
Senior UN humanitarian official John Ging said the UN's Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, was on her way to the Philippines.
A priority of the UN's response teams once on the ground would be the burial of bodies to meet concerns about public health, he said.
Three days after Typhoon Haiyan hit,
aerial photos are revealing a scene of apocalyptic devastation along a
swathe of the central Philippines.
The storm flattened houses, leaving thousands homeless in many areas.
In Tacloban, one of the worst hit cities, the storm washed ships ashore.
A 21-year-old woman lies exhausted on
the debris-covered floor at a makeshift medical facility in Tacloban
after giving birth to a baby girl. The storm surge swept away her
mother.
The storm, by now much weaker, hit Vietnam in Ha Long City, causing damage and some casualties.
Authorities had evacuated
hundreds of thousands of people before the typhoon arrived, but many
evacuation centres - schools, churches and government buildings - proved
unable to withstand the winds and storm surges.
International aid
- Australia: Aus$10m ($9.4m; £5.8m), including medical personnel
- China: $200,000 (£125,000)
- European Commission: 3m euros (£2.5m; $4m)
- Indonesia: Aircraft, personnel, drinking water, food, generators, medicine
- Japan: 25 emergency medical personnel
- New Zealand: NZ$2.15m (£1.1m)
- Taiwan: $200,000
- UK: £6m ($9.6m) non-food aid package
- UN central emergency relief fund: $25m
- US: 90 marines and sailors; emergency food, water, shelter and hygiene materials
- Vietnam: $100,000
Officials said looting was
widespread and order was proving difficult to enforce. Correspondents
say many ordinary people are simply scavenging for the food and water
needed to survive.
In some areas, the dead are being buried in mass graves.American military aircraft and ships are being deployed to provide help. Aid is being flown into the only regional international airport at Cebu, with relief efforts focusing on Tacloban.
Other countries have also pledged millions of dollars in assistance. Australia has approved $9m in humanitarian aid to the Philippines, while New Zealand has pledged over $1m.
The Philippine envoy to the UN climate talks in Poland, Naderev Sano, shed tears as he blamed global warming for the typhoon.
"We can fix this," he said. "We can stop this madness, right now, right here."
However, the issue of whether the frequency and size of hurricanes is affected by climate change is hotly debated within the scientific community.
Typhoon Haiyan later made landfall in Vietnam, near the tourist destination of Ha Long Bay, with sustained winds of up to 140 km/h (85mph).
Despite losing much of its strength, the storm still felled trees and damaged buildings, with reports of some casualties.
Some 600,000 people were evacuated in northern provinces of the country.
Labels: Natural Disasters, Philippines
posted by Pieface @ Monday, November 11, 2013
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