Nature's Carnage

"The rain and wind were so strong and the water surged in fast and rose without letup. We had no time to move elsewhere, so we clambered up the room, about ten of us. Then the roof started to peel off. One by one, we were exposed to the rain and we were just holding to the roof wooden beams. Then the walls of the building started collapsing and each one of us started falling into the water. We were yelling at each other. Then all of us got separated."
Lt.-Col. Fermin Carangan -- Leyte air force commander, at Tacloban base, Philippines

AP Photo/Bullit Marquez   Police forensics line up bodies for processing at Tacloban City Hall after Typhoon 

Haiyan slammed the city in Leyte province, central Philippines, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013

 

"There's been a very limited distribution of food and water and people are complaining about the lack of supplies."
Kendra Clegg, UN disaster and assessment team, Panay Island, west of Tacloban

AP Photo/Aaron FavilaSurvivors walk in typhoon ravaged Tacloban city, Leyte province, central Philippines 

on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013

"Supplies of food are dwindling. At first, each family was getting five kilos of rice a day from the local government. Now, it's three kilos. Tomorrow, it might go down again."
Tata Abella, Oxfam team leader

Philippe Lopez / AFP / Getty Images    A maritime police boat washed ashore in Tacloban

 

The Philippines is known for the depth of its corruption. Foreign aid designated for infrastructure needs, such as road-building, often goes astray. In the case of roads being built leading to isolated regions of the country to enable aid to be trucked in, the lack of that infrastructure leads inevitably to an inability to deliver aid during times of great natural disasters, leaving vulnerable people to their own devices.

That same systemic corruption at every level reflects itself in the use of inferior building materials and construction methods in an area known for its susceptibility to cyclones, to earthquakes, and to volcanic eruptions. It is always the elite, the corrupt, the politicians who manage to evade the consequences of undermining the welfare of the entire extended community; it is always the weak, the poor, the isolated who suffer, and it was always thus, everywhere.

In Tacloban, the city hardest hit among the typhoon-battered islands of the Philippines, the predators have been slinking out from beneath their hidey-holes. Threats, intimidating and looting has resulted, with desperate survivors and shop-keepers sometimes facing another ferocious misery, being confronted by arms-wielding thugs. Residents have stripped malls, shops and homes of food, of water.

This is the kind of looting that is performed as an act of existential desperation, because people have nothing left other than the prospect of continued neglect of their emergency needs, and eventual starvation if aid doesn't reach them soon; food, potable water, medical attention. On the other hand, people have been seen to take another kind of advantage for themselves, hauling off televisions, refrigerators, Christmas trees; a treadmill too was mentioned.

Authorities in the Philippines say at least 9.7-million people over 41 provinces have been affected by Typhoon Haiyan. Considered to the deadliest natural disaster the country has ever been challenged by. Soldiers are attempting to distribute food and water. Disaster assessment teams from the United Nations, and other international agencies including that of Israel, and Canada's DART team, have been doing their work.

The typhoon is estimated to have caused the death of up to ten thousand people. "I don't believe there is a single structure that is not destroyed or severely damaged in some way -- every single building, every single house", commented U.S. Marine Brig.-Gen. Paul Kennedy, after a helicopter observation flight over Tacloban, the largest city in Leyte province.

The U.S. military has dispatched food, water, generators and a contingent of marines to Tacloban. According to local authorities 800,000 people had been evacuated ahead of the typhoon's arrival. In synch with the 'best laid plans of mice and men' (often going astray), many of those evacuation centres were ineffective against the wind and rising water.

Countless people are now 'missing', unaccounted for, probabilities high that they were sucked into the sea, their bodies likely to wash up at a later time.

Looters who sacked groceries and pharmacies across the city over the devastating weekend, left bare shelves behind them to confront the population hungry and thirsty and finding no aid for the dreadful conditions which have now assailed them.