Category Archives: Philippines – Typhoon

December 18, 2012 · 4:22 PM

Meeting basic needs in Philippines after super tyhpoon

Volunteers unload supplies for CRS’ first distribution.
The kits include hygiene items, sleeping mats, water cans, blankets, towels and a pail. Photo by Jennifer Hardy/Catholic Relief Services

By Jennifer Hardy, CRS Communications Officer

When Typhoon Bopha swept through Mindanao in the Philippines on 3 December, hundreds of thousands of people found themselves without shelter that night. New Bataan was especially hard hit. The neighbourhood of Andap lost 300 homes in a devastating mudslide. More than 900 people are reported missing since the storm, including 300 people in New Bataan alone.

Those who survived say they feel blessed to be alive, but for those who escaped the mudslide in Andap, they faced the morning of 4 December with nothing but the clothes they were wearing that night.

Olimpio Leon lost his home, and members of his extended family, in the mudslide. He is now staying with his wife and children in an evacuation centre in the local high school.

“Around four in the morning, the sky was dark with the storm and the winds were very strong,” he recalls of Bopha’s approach. “At six, we started to evacuate to the elementary school. We had a few valuable things with us. We heard on the news that New Bataan was the centre of the storm, but we had no idea it would be so strong.”

“At seven,” he adds, “the storm was getting worse, and we needed to leave the elementary school. We couldn’t carry anything because the storm was very bad. We took a shortcut to the high school. I’m glad we didn’t take the road because the mudslide came down when we would have been on it. By 8:30, the storm started to ease, but we also began to hear people shouting about the mudslide.” Continue reading →

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December 10, 2012 · 4:59 PM

Typhoon Bopha leaves trail of destruction in Philippines

Concepcion Ondocan is coping with loss after so many of her friends and neighbors were killed in a mudslide that swept away 300 homes. Photo by Jen Hardy/CRS

Concepcion Ondocan is coping with loss after so many of her friends and neighbours were killed in a mudslide that swept away 300 homes. Photo by Jen Hardy/CRS

By Jen Hardy, CRS Communications Officer

Lush trees dominate the landscape in the tropical Philippines. But in this mountainous section of Mindanao, brown, barren landscape now stretches into the distance.

The trees that stayed standing were stripped bare on 3 December, as Typhoon Bopha devastated areas of Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental. In many areas, every tree, stretching to the mountains in the distance, lies snapped on the ground.

Massive banana plantations have been flattened, leaving only traces of homes and other structures. Bananas sit rotting in the mud, and plantation labourers worry that with no bananas to harvest they’ve lost their incomes just as they’re grappling with so much other loss.

Fele Ondocan is thankful that her home in Andap barangay is only damaged, not totally destroyed.

“The roof and part of the frame blew away, but we found it nearby. We’re relieved, because we can’t afford to buy new materials,” she said. “We can fix the home. Our neighbours lost everything.” Continue reading →

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· 4:36 PM

Typhoon Bopha in the Philippines: ‘It looks like a tsunami hit’

CRS (Caritas member in the USA) staffer Howard Bacayana stands in about a foot of water as he does a damage assessment in the city of Cagayan de Oro after Typhoon Bopha (known locally as Pablo) struck the Philippines on December 4, 2012. Credits: Salacion Pacatang/Catholic Relief Services

“It looks like a tsunami hit. It’s just complete and total destruction. Whole hillsides were washed away in flash floods,” said Joe Curry, CRS country representative in the Philippines.

“I’ve talked to colleagues who’ve worked in disaster response for ten years, and they say the devastation in the Compostela Valley is among the worst they’ve ever seen in the Philippines,” said Curry.

The official death toll now stands at more than 647, with at least 550 people missing. Tens of thousands of people have lost their homes since the typhoon made landfall last Tuesday.

“As the roads are now being accessible and the electricity is back in many areas , the communication and access is bringing a clearer picture of the extend of the destruction,” says Cynthia Perez from Caritas Philippines (locally known as NASSA). Continue reading →

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February 16, 2012 · 1:32 PM

Recycling timber to aid victims of Typhoon Washi

Logs washed up near the port in Iligan City . Credit: Robert Cruickshank/CAFOD

In the Philippines, where thousands of people lost their homes to powerful Typhoon Washi, a Caritas partner is using timber from logs that were washed down the river to build temporary shelters. In rural areas, they are also distributing housing repair kits – tools, sheeting and plywood – and helping to repair water systems.

Read more about the work of CAFOD (a Caritas member based in the UK) and ECOWEB, its partner on the ground.

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December 22, 2011 · 3:36 PM

Philippines: dispatch from the flood zone

A jeepney that used to serve in the interior areas. Scenes from the southern Philippines following Tropical Storm Washi. Photo credit: CAFOD

Carino Antequisa of CAFOD (Caritas UK) is on the ground in the southern Philippines responding to the emergency. He writes:

I have just come back from our assessment in the interior areas of Iligan. I’m a bit tired as we had to hike some stretches of impassable roads to reach some devastated communities along the Mandulog River. Our team was the first to reach some of the interior villages that were totally swept by the rampaging water.

The situation in the interior villages is very much the same as in the urban areas. However, what they considered as immediate needs are nails, roofing materials, a chainsaw for cutting the fallen coconut trees for their new homes, and food while they reconstruct their houses. Most of them still have farms that were partially destroyed but still could provide food. There is a visible need for improving their water supply.

They need shelter, along with farm tools, draft animals and other things for their crops. A big challenge is where to locate their new houses.

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December 20, 2011 · 12:58 PM

Philippines Update: A Flooded City Needs Water

Typhoon Washi victims who are made homeless after their houses were swept away by flash floods rest at an evacuation center in Cagayan de Oro in the southern Philippines. Credit: REUTERS/Erik De Castro courtesy of Alertnet.org

By Jennifer Hardy, CRS Regional Information Officer for Asia

When people living along the river went to sleep in Cagayan de Oro on Friday night, they didn’t know that a wall of water was barreling toward their homes. By 11 pm, communities in this part of the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines were mostly quiet. Radios were silenced for the night. Residents didn’t hear the emergency warnings broadcast by the government shortly before water crashed into homes on the riverbank. Survivors made it out of the water with their lives, but few possessions. Others perished before they could even leave their homes.

Joe Curry, Catholic Relief Services’ country representative for the Philippines, arrived at the flood zone and met people who had lost everything. “Some people don’t even have shoes – their sandals were pulled off their feet in the flood,” he says.

The topography of Cagayan de Oro was ripe for disastrous flooding. A river flows down a mountain, through a ravine, into the city and out to the ocean. But there had been storms before that didn’t cause such widespread death and destruction. Tropical Storm Washi (known locally as Sendong) took an unusual path that brought torrential rain to the mountains around Cagayan de Oro. City residents didn’t have a precedent for the flash floods that followed. More than 50,000 people are now living in emergency evacuation centers.
Continue reading →

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