DEVASTATION. Mere weeks after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Visayas, Typhoon Yolanda demolished structures and claimed lives in the region. Photo from The Inquirer.
TYPHOON YOLANDA (international name Haiyan), considered the world’s strongest storm this year, barreled through the Visayas region yesterday, causing extensive blackouts and damages to infrastructure and cancelling flights, classes and work.
According to initial figures by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), Yolanda has already claimed at least four lives. But Captain John Andrews, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), citing an initial report by a CAAP officer in Tacloban, told Reuters that “at least 100 people may have died” adding that “bodies were lying on the streets” of the city. The Red Cross, on the other hand, has reported approximately 1,200 deaths.
Initial reports
Transmission lines for power and cellular signals have been largely knocked off in affected areas, making it difficult to assess the full extent of the devastation. “Communication has… been hard. Even using 3G, most people could not send texts,” says Mayelle Nisperos, a legal management sophomore from Bacolod.
Images from various media outlets show strong winds, torrential rains and giant storm surges battering cities in the Visayas such as Tacloban and Ormoc in Leyte, as well as parts of Bicol, Mindoro and Northern Mindanao.
“Roofs of several houses have already come off. The rain and winds are stronger than they’ve ever been in Cebu,” says Paulina Almira, an information design sophomore from Cebu.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer reports the storm to have a diameter of about 600 kilometers, prompting the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Sciences Administration (Pagasa) to raise storm signals in 58 areas nationwide.
Advanced warnings
For now, it seems more people heeded calls for vigilance and preparation, somehow lessening the damage of the potential killer storm. Almira observes that people in Cebu have stocked up on food and water and boarded up windows upon hearing news of the approaching typhoon. The province, along with neighboring Bohol, is still recovering from a devastating magnitude-7.2 earthquake that struck last month.
In Bacolod, Nisperos reports that “according to updates I’ve gotten via Facebook and friends, there was early evacuation and the police launched forced evacuation in certain disaster prone areas.”
“All in all, I haven’t heard of anything too serious other than major inconvenience [12-hour blackout], but I’d have to attribute that to advanced warnings from Pagasa.”
Though Metro Manila was not directly affected by the storm, the Loyola Schools called off classes, student activities and work on its own yesterday since the suspension for Quezon City only covered until high school.
Yolanda, which at one point zoomed at a rate of 40 kph, has promptly left the Philippine area of responsibility today. A slower speed may have caused the storm to stay longer, wreaking more havoc.
One of the strongest typhoons
Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated in preparation for the mammoth typhoon, which has already made its mark as one of the strongest typhoons in history.
A report by the Associated Press (AP) reveals differences in measurements recorded for Yolanda. The US-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center pegs the storm’s sustained winds at 196 kph, which means it has dislodged previous records of the strongest storms to have ever made landfall. However, weather officials here and in Tokyo only put it at 147 kph.
The discrepancy in figures stem from the differing methods used by weather agencies to measure storms. Taoyang Peng, a tropical cyclone scientist at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva, was quoted by AP, saying that his group will follow Tokyo’s figures since it is the closest regional center.
Peng thinks that Yolanda is not the strongest storm, but he conceded that “it is one of the strongest typhoons to make landfall” and probably the strongest to hit the Philippines.
Max Mayfield of the US National Hurricane Center told AP that it will take a “deep investigation” to fully understand how strong Yolanda actually was.
Relief operations
In response to the storm’s aftermath, the Sanggunian and the Office for Social Concern and Involvement sent an Ateneo contingent this afternoon to help the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in packing 25,000 relief goods for the victims of Yolanda in Region Eight.
Those in urgent need of assistance may also contact any Sanggunian officer for help. Details can be found at the Sanggunian’s Facebook page.
Meanwhile, the Ateneo Disaster Response and Management (Dream) Team is now accepting donations but only in cash. In an appeal posted on the Ateneo website, the money will be used to “meet relief and/or rehabilitation needs of such victims (including purchase and provision-transportation of supplies/materials) in various partner communities of the Ateneo de Manila, particularly in (but not limited to) areas to which fellow Ateneo schools Ateneo de Iloilo and Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu may be reaching out in their own localized relief operations.”
At the same time, the Dream Team noted its continued fundraising for the victims of Typhoon Santi and last month’s Bohol quakes.
UPDATED: 10:50 PM, November 9, 2013
