Life in the Philippines: preparing for the next typhoon Haiyan
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Version 0 of 1. In 2013, the Philippines had so many typhoons that it ran out of letters to name them. For the first time, the country had got to the end of the alphabet for typhoon names and had to start at ‘a’ again. The letter ‘y’ proved most devastating. Typhoon Yolanda – known internationally as Haiyan – tore through a swathe of the Philippines on 8 November 2013, leaving more than 6,300 people dead. Nearly 2,000 are still listed as missing. The winds reached 196 miles per hour, the waves nearly 8m. Boulders the size of blue whales were dislodged. The unprecedented ferocity of Haiyan gouged wounds into the Filipino national psyche, causing apprehension about the future. Sixteen months on from the disaster - and just days after the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu suffered a similar fate at the hands of Cyclone Pam - the typhoon-ravaged area is back on its feet with a couple of thousand people out of the four million displaced lacking at least a temporary home. But while the damage and loss of life has triggered some improvements, millions of people remain stuck in a situation where they are at acute risk from escalating climate change-driven disasters. Richard Sandison, emergency response manager at Plan International Philippines, arrived a week after Haiyan. He says the country is now starting to get its head around the disaster. “It was very distressing, there were a lot of dead bodies on the roads and in rivers,” Sandison recalls. “People were walking around aimlessly, conveying a sense of hopelessness. “I’ve seen people grow remarkably since then. Children who were afraid of the rain are now playing in the rain and in the sea. It’s remarkable to see the difference in the past 14 months; it’s inspiring. “People are now a lot more aware of the need to be evacuated to safer areas, to do it early and not leave it to the last minute.” Haiyan offered a grim case study on how climate change is a live issue for the Philippines. The IPCC predicts that climate change is likely to cause tropical cyclones to become “more severe with greater wind speeds and more intense precipitation” – a nightmarish scenario for a country already battered by around 20 typhoons a year. “We live in a new normal now and it can be hard for people to understand that things are different now,” says Alexander Pama, undersecretary of the national civil defence agency. “I used to be an officer in the navy and we would measure typhoons. Towards the latter part of my career, we were seeing a change in the patterns, the strength was getting stronger. Even the length of the typhoons is defying tradition.” Typhoons are not the Philippines’ only blight. The country lies on the Pacific ‘ring of fire’, making it prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity. Centrally located mountains dip sharply at the coast, putting coastal communities at risk from deadly landslides. “Here in the Philippines we are cursed by all kinds of disasters,” says Pama of one of the most naturally volatile countries on Earth, which also has its fair share of human-induced strife. Following Haiyan, the Philippines was hit with what Pama calls the “second surge” – a wave of NGOs and international aid agencies. With their good intentions and myriad acronyms, the agencies occasionally offered things the Philippines didn’t really need – such as rice that was still available from the country’s agricultural regions – but now appear to be co-ordinating well with each other to provide shelter, health and education to the populace, 11 million of whom were affected in some way by the typhoon. The European Union agency ECHO has provided €30m (£21m) in support, distributing food to 1.2 million people and emergency shelter to a further three million. Individual countries from around the world also pitched in, from Russia to Saudi Arabia, Norway to Indonesia. The US government pledged $37m (£25m), the UK £77m and Australia A$30m (£15m). Aid agencies – Plan International, Save the Children, the Red Cross and others – gathered under the UN’s cluster system, which groups charities together to help in certain areas, such as shelter, health and education. The focus has now shifted to preparing for the next disaster, a daunting task with millions of Filipinos living in flimsy wooden houses beside the coast. The rebuilding has been swift – aid agencies praise the rebound of the Philippines compared to, say, Haiti – but the process of making the country more resilient to a looming future of more Haiyans has been frustratingly slow in parts. The city of Tacloban, an epicentre of the Haiyan disaster, has scrambled to its feet with some visible scars – the mass graves remain, as do some of the crunched roofs. Rebuilding of large public buildings bears the lessons of Haiyan – new schools have grills on windows; reinforced concrete beams and bolts in the ceiling that allow the roof to judder a little in high winds without ripping away. But large areas of housing are still highly vulnerable. In the district on Anibong, signs declaring the coast a ‘no build zone’ after Haiyan have been disregarded and houses have been rebuilt in the same place, in the same way. In an ideal world, people would move inland, away from the storm surges, into sturdy cyclone-resistant houses. But many Filipinos are dependent on fishing. Tens of thousands of boats were destroyed by the typhoon, along with millions of coconut trees – another valuable source of income. “We thought the world was ending,” says Osias Grefiel, 58, a fisherman on the east coast of the East Samar province. Locals recall huge waves, coral being washed into their houses. For many of these, their homes and livelihoods were destroyed. “I cried, like I had lost a family member” Grefiel says of his own lost boat. “I have nine children. I was scared. I want to get transferred to higher ground, but then, there’s the sap sap [the tasty local fish that is the basis of his income].” Aid agencies, led by the UN, are helping to diversify incomes, as well as highlighting how sustainability can help alleviate natural disaster. Progress has been made, for example, on the restoration of coastal mangroves that will, come the next big typhoon, act as a crucial buffer. There’s only so much that the outside world can do about Filipino politics, however. Locals complain that political opponents of the president, Benigno S Aquino II, have been denied funds. Tacloban’s mayor, Alfred S Romualdez, nephew of famed shoe aficionado Imelda Marcos, falls into this category. So does the head of Tigdaranao, a small island barangay, or village. It’s partially-built typhoon shelter needs just $20,000to finish it – money that has not been forthcoming. In lieu of the shelter, a man runs around the village with a red flag on a stick while a metal pole is clanged to warn of an approaching typhoon. Residents then assemble in the school, one of the only concrete buildings on Tigdaranao. It feels painfully inadequate, and entirely avoidable. Now at least people heed the flood warnings. “People were saying ‘please evacuate as your area is prone to flash floods’,” Pama says of one family warned of the typhoon. “The matriarch says ‘I’m 70 that has never happened’. Unfortunately that did happen and practically the whole family was washed away.” Procedures have been put in place to warn and evacuate people who are in the path of typhoons. Residents now understand the term ‘storm surge’ is something to be concerned about and there is an impressive level of unity and co-operation among the communities that are left to deal with the worst when it arrives. But some people are even more vulnerable than they were before Haiyan. While the focus has been on rebuilding coastal areas, those inland who were devastated have been left in NGO-built temporary homes because they are unable to afford permanent, solid structures that would fare better in high winds and floods. “The rain water gets in here,” says 58-year-old Flocertina Macabocsit, touching the thin walls of her temporary wooden home. Eight family members live in a property roughly the size of upmarket hotel’s bathroom. “We are very worried about future typhoons. I want to stay here because I grew up here, but we want a stronger house. We had typhoons every year but Yolanda was different. It was shocking. “I never thought about the level of destruction before, but now I imagine it. We think our homes will be destroyed again.” Macabocsit has a community centre she can flee to when a typhoon strikes, but others aren’t so lucky. Although each Filipino province sets aside 5% of its budget for disaster preparedness, with the national government putting more effort into better planning rather than just mopping up, emergency shelter is still lacking. Worryingly, more than a year after Haiyan, there have been no new evacuation centres built in East Samar, one of the worst hit regions. Less than a third of citizens have somewhere to go if a typhoon strikes – with private housing making up the bulk of evacuation centres. “I admit we still have to do more,” says Jinnah Mae L Librio, of the regional government’s disaster preparedness team. “What we’re given is never really enough.” |