Typhoon Haiyan

[Jollygoodfellow]

for those seeking info about people in the typhoon areas try this,Google people finding service

 

 http://google.org/personfinder/2013-yolanda/

 

 

It also has a mobile phone version.

“You can request status via SMS by sending an SMS to +16508003977 with the message Search person-name. For example, if you are searching for Joshua, send the message Search Joshua,” said Google.

[Thomas]

Now I got first personal report from Bohol (Tubigon). They have no serious damages of own property, but theirs is much stronger than average. Electric still out.

[Medic Mike]

Just been advised, first Recon Team from the Cebu ERUF has arrived in Leyte. Will make further updates as I am advised.

[Medic Mike]

Palace: Tacloban is now accessible

 

 

Looting under control - Almendras

Survivors stay in their damaged house on Sunday after super typhoon Yolanda battered Tacloban City. Photo by Romeo Ranoco, Reuters

MANILA -- Tacloban City is now accessible, according to Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras, adding that the peace and order situation there is already under control.

“Tacloban is now accessible from the north via the San Juanico Bridge,” Almendras said in a press conference in Roxas City on Sunday aftermoon.

He also said there is no need to airlift goods and other services needed in the relief operations of the Yolanda-devastated city.

“The situation in Tacloban is difficult, the more resources [that will come in], the better,” he said, noting that what people need as soon as possible are food and tents.

Almendras also reported that the lawlessness that happened in Tacloban in the aftermath of Yolanda is “already under control,” noting that the government has moved police forces even from the National Capital Region to the area.

The local government of Tacloban earlier urged President Benigno Aquino III to declare martial law in the area because of widespread looting.

Government employees can’t also report to work because they have become victims themselves to the storm surges.

Malacanang said the Philippine National Police led by Director General Alan Purisima has entered the area to control the situation.

Casualties

Amid all these, Malacanang said it could not yet account for the number of deaths after the super typhoon wreaked havoc in the area, adding that it has yet to confirm the estimated 10,000 people killed in the central Philippines since “the [National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council] is still accounting for the missing.”

Almendras explained that the first order is to reach out and administer to the needs of the survivors, noting that Iloilo and Cebu have become logistics centers for Tacloban and Ormoc.

He also said the Department of Social Welfare and Development is seeking volunteers there for repacking of goods.

Meanwhile, Roxas City has become a “forward command center” for purposes of rescue, relief and rehabilitation operations.

Almenmdras vowed that help is on its way to Samar, which has also been battered by Yolanda.

“Northern Samar is not as adversely affected. It’s the southeast portion that is adversely affected.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Medic Mike

[Medic Mike]

Former Australian priest Kevin Lee dies in Philippines typhoon

 

A FORMER Australian priest and sex abuse whistleblower is believed to be among the thousands feared killed by a super typhoon in the Philippines.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed the death of a 50-year-old NSW man in Typhoon Haiyan, but declined to confirm his identity.

However he is believed to be former Australian priest Kevin Lee.

A whistleblower about child sex abuse in the Catholic church, he was living in the Philippines with his wife.

Read and watch The Weekend Australian Magazine's August 2012 interview with Kevin Lee

Mr Lee was last year removed from his parish responsibilities in western Sydney after admitting to marrying a woman in secret, the ABC reports.

 

He spoke out about abuse in the Catholic Church in the ABC's Four Corners program Unholy Silence which aired on the ABC last year.

He also wrote a book about the abuse he became aware of during his time as a priest.

Officials fear the death toll in the Philippines could reach 10,000 people, after Haiyan tore into the eastern islands of Leyte and Samar on Friday.

Sustained winds of around 315km/h made it the strongest typhoon in the world this year, and one of the most intense ever to hit land.

Australia has pledged nearly $400,000 worth of emergency aid to devastated communities.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Medic Mike

[Medic Mike]

REFILE-Toppled Philippine church cross overlooks typhoon's destruction

 

Nov 10 (Reuters) - A church spire, its cross hanging loose, looks down on smashed houses, wrecked cars, toppled power lines and snapped trees, as dazed survivors try to count the cost.

A bare-chested man in white shorts squats and wails. Another attempts the once-normal task of washing dishes in a container in a mangled van, as bodies lie abandoned around him.

Two days after one of the world's most powerful typhoons slammed into the Philippines, as many as 10,000 people are believed to have died in a single city: Tacloban.

It is near here where U.S. General Douglas MacArthur's force of 174,000 men landed on October 20, 1944, in one of the biggest allied victories of World War Two.

Today, men, women and children tread carefully over splintered remains of wooden houses, searching for missing loved ones and belongings. From the air, television footage shows trees pulled from the ground by their roots and ships washed ashore.

Not one building seems to have escaped damage in the city of 220,000 people, the coastal capital of Leyte province, about 580 km (360 miles) southeast of Manila.

Survivors queue in lines, waiting for handouts of rice and water. Some sit and stare, covering their faces with rags to keep out the smell of the dead.

One woman, eight months pregnant, describes through tears how her 11 family members vanished in the storm, including two daughters. "I can't think right now," she says. "I am overwhelmed."

At the airport, people wait in mud and water after trekking three hours by foot from Tacloban City, hoping to be evacuated by military aircraft. Roads to and from the city are impassable, littered with debris and fallen trees. "We are trying to get to Cebu or Manila," one distraught tourist says. "I must go out."

 

Only 110 people can squeeze on to each flight. The elderly, sick and children are given priority. Two soldiers carry a man who can't walk.

Jenny Chu, a medical student and local resident, can't recognise her village. "Everything is gone. Our house is like a skeleton and we are running out of food and water. We are looking for food everywhere."

"Even the delivery vans were looted," she adds. "People are walking like zombies looking for food."

Lieutenant Colonel Fermin Carangan of the Philippine Air Force recalls how he and 41 officers struggled to survive huddled in their airport office as winds approached 195 miles per hour (313 km per hour) with gusts of up to 235 mph (378 kph).

"Suddenly the sea water and the waves destroyed the walls and I saw my men being swept by waters one by one." Two drowned and five are missing.

He was swept away from the building and clung to a coconut tree with a seven-year-old boy.

"In the next five hours we were in the sea buffeted by wind and strong rain. It was so dark you couldn't see anything. I kept on talking to the boy and giving him a pep talk because the boy was telling me he was tired and he wanted to sleep."

He finally saw land and swam with the boy to a beach strewn with dead bodies. "I think the boy saved my life because I found strength so that he can survive."

Some expressed anger at the slow pace of rescue efforts but the country's defence chief, Voltaire Gazmin, denies being ill-prepared.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Medic Mike

[Medic Mike]

Assorted typhoon pics.

[bootleultras]

Heart breaking pictures both here and on the TV, my heart goes our to all those affected.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Medic Mike]

_{Philippines destruction ‘a great human tragedy’ as more than 10,000 feared killed}

 

_{As many as 10,000 people are believed dead in one Philippine city alone after one of the worst storms ever recorded unleashed ferocious winds and giant waves that washed away homes and schools.}

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_{Aaron Favila / AP}

_{A resident looks at houses damaged by typhoon Haiyan, in Tacloban city, central Philippines. (Nov. 10, 2013)}

_{By: Jim Gomez The Associated Press, Published on Sun Nov 10 2013}

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• _{TACLOBAN, PHILIPPINES—As many as 10,000 people are believed dead in one Philippine city alone after one of the worst storms ever recorded unleashed ferocious winds and giant waves that washed away homes and schools. Corpses hung from tree branches and were scattered along sidewalks and among flattened buildings, while looters raided grocery stores and gas stations in search of food, fuel and water.}

_{Officials projected the death toll could climb even higher when emergency crews reach areas cut off by flooding and landslides. Even in the disaster-prone Philippines, which regularly contends with earthquakes, volcanoes and tropical cyclones, Typhoon Haiyan appears to be the deadliest natural disaster on record.}

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_{Haiyan hit the eastern seaboard of the Philippine archipelago on Friday and quickly barrelled across its central islands before exiting into the South China Sea, packing winds of 235 kilometres per hour that gusted to 275 km/h, and a storm surge that caused sea waters to rise 6 metres.}

_{It wasn’t until Sunday that the scale of the devastation became clear, with local officials on hardest-hit Leyte Island saying that there may be 10,000 dead in the provincial capital of Tacloban alone. Reports also trickled in from elsewhere on the island, and from neighbouring islands, indicating hundreds, if not thousands more deaths, though it will be days before the full extent of the storm’s impact can be assessed.}

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  _{Expert: Typhoon Haiyan 'Off the Scale'}

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  _{Typhoon Haiyan kills hundreds in Philippines}

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  _{Typhoon Haiyan Blasts the Philippines}

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  _{Thousands Flee as Super Typhoon 'Haiyan' Nears Philippines}

_{“On the way to the airport we saw many bodies along the street,” said Philippine-born Australian Mila Ward, 53, who was waiting at the Tacloban airport to catch a military flight back to Manila. “They were covered with just anything — tarpaulin, roofing sheets, cardboards.” She said she passed “well over 100” dead bodies along the way.}

_{In the storm’s aftermath, people wept while retrieving the bodies of loved ones from inside buildings. On a street littered with fallen trees, roofing material and other wreckage, all that was left of one large building were the skeletal remains of its rafters.}

_{The airport in Tacloban, about 580 kilometres southeast of Manila, was a muddy wasteland of debris, with crumpled tin roofs and overturned cars. The airport tower’s glass windows were shattered, and air force helicopters were flying in and out as relief operations got underway. Residential homes lining the road into Tacloban city were all blown or washed away.}

_{“All systems, all vestiges of modern living — communications, power, water — all are down,” Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said after visiting Tacloban on Saturday. “There is no way to communicate with the people.”}

_{Haiyan raced across the eastern and central Philippines, inflicting serious damage to at least six of the archipelago’s more than 7,000 islands, with Leyte, neighbouring Samar Island, and the northern part of Cebu appearing to take the hardest hit. It weakened as it crossed the South China Sea before approaching northern Vietnam. It was forecast to hit land Monday morning.}

_{On Leyte, regional police chief Elmer Soria said the provincial governor had told him there were about 10,000 deaths there, primarily from drowning and collapsed buildings. Most of the deaths were in Tacloban, a city of about 200,000 that is the biggest on Leyte Island. A mass burial was planned for Sunday in a nearby town.}

_{On Samar, Leo Dacaynos of the provincial disaster office said 300 people were confirmed dead in one town and another 2,000 were missing, while some towns have yet to be reached by rescuers. He pleaded for food and water and said power was out and there was no cellphone signal, making communication possible only by radio.}

_{Reports from the other affected islands indicated dozens, perhaps hundreds more deaths.}

_{The massive casualties occurred even though the government had evacuated nearly 800,000 people ahead of the typhoon. About 4 million people were affected by the storm, the national disaster agency said.}

_{President Benigno Aquino III flew around Leyte by helicopter on Sunday and landed in Tacloban to get a firsthand look at the disaster. He said the government’s priority was to restore power and communications in isolated areas and deliver relief and medical assistance to victims.}

_{Challenged to respond to a disaster of such magnitude, the Philippine government also accepted help from its U.S. and European allies.}

_{In Washington, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel directed the military’s Pacific Command to deploy ships and aircraft to support search-and-rescue operations and airlift emergency supplies, while European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso sent Aquino a message saying “we stand ready to contribute with urgent relief and assistance if so required in this hour of need.”}

_{United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon offered his condolences and said U.N. humanitarian agencies were working closely with the Philippine government to respond quickly with emergency assistance, according to a statement.}

_{The Philippines is annually buffeted by tropical storms and typhoons, which are called hurricanes and cyclones elsewhere on the planet. The nation is positioned alongside the warm South Pacific where typhoons are spawned. Many rake the islands with fierce winds and powerful waves each year, and the archipelago’s exposed eastern seaboard often bears the brunt.}

_{Even by the standards of the Philippines, however, Haiyan is a catastrophe of epic proportions and has shocked the impoverished and densely populated nation of 96 million people. Its winds were among the strongest ever recorded, and it appears to have killed many more people than the previous deadliest Philippine storm, Thelma, which killed around 5,100 people in the central Philippines in 1991.The deadliest disaster on record was the 1976 magnitude-7.9 earthquake that triggered a tsunami in the Moro Gulf in the southern Philippines, killing 5,791.}

_{Haiyan’s winds were so strong that Tacloban residents who sought shelter at a local school tied down the building’s roof, but it was ripped off anyway and the school collapsed, City Administrator Tecson Lim said. It wasn’t clear how many died there.}

_{The city’s two largest malls and groceries were looted and the gasoline stations destroyed by the typhoon. Police were deployed to guard a fuel depot to prevent the theft of fuel. Two hundred additional police officers came to Tacloban on Sunday from elsewhere in the country to help restore law and order.}

_{Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Aquino was “speechless” when he told him of the devastation the typhoon had wrought in Tacloban.}

_{“I told him all systems are down,” Gazmin said. “There is no power, no water, nothing. People are desperate. They’re looting.”}

_{Tacloban, in the east-central Philippines, is near the Red Beach on Leyte Island where U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur waded ashore in 1944 during the World War II and fulfilled his famous pledge: “I shall return.”}

_{It was the first city liberated from the Japanese by U.S. and Filipino forces and served as the Philippines’ temporary capital for several months. It is also the hometown of former Filipino first lady Imelda Marcos, whose nephew, Alfred Romualdez, is the city’s mayor.}

_{One Tacloban resident said he and others took refuge inside a parked Jeep to protect themselves from the storm, but the vehicle was swept away by a surging wall of water.}

_{“The water was as high as a coconut tree,” said 44-year-old Sandy Torotoro, a bicycle taxi driver who lives near the airport with his wife and 8-year-old daughter. “I got out of the Jeep and I was swept away by the rampaging water with logs, trees and our house, which was ripped off from its mooring.}

_{“When we were being swept by the water, many people were floating and raising their hands and yelling for help. But what can we do? We also needed to be helped,” Torotoro said.}

_{In Torotoro’s village, bodies could be seen lying along the muddy main road, as residents who had lost their homes huddled with the few possessions they had managed to save. The road was lined with trees that had fallen to the ground.}

_{Vice Mayor Jim Pe of Coron town on Busuanga, the last island battered by the typhoon before it blew away to the South China Sea, said most of the houses and buildings there had been destroyed or damaged. Five people drowned in the storm surge and three others were missing, he said by phone.}

_{The sound of the wind “was like a 747 flying just above my roof,” he said. His family and some of his neighbours whose houses were destroyed took shelter in his basement.}

_{Tim Ticar, a local tourism officer, said 6,000 foreign and local tourists were stranded on the popular resort island of Boracay, one of the tourist spots in the typhoon’s path.}

_{UNICEF estimated that about 1.7 million children are living in areas impacted by the typhoon, according to the agency’s representative in the Philippines Tomoo Hozumi. UNICEF’s supply division in Copenhagen was loading 60 metric tons of relief supplies for an emergency airlift expected to arrive in the Philippines on Tuesday.}

_{“The devastation is ... I don’t have the words for it,” Interior Secretary Roxas said. “It’s really horrific. It’s a great human tragedy.”}

 

Edited November 10, 2013 by Medic Mike

[Thomas]

TACLOBAN, PHILIPPINES—As many as 10,000 people are believed dead in one Philippine city

I still wonder how come so many DROWNED by not being evacuated.

1. Officials not organicing it?

2. Or many people didn't follow, when they were told to evacuate?