REMEMBRANCE: Residents and survivors sit near lit candles while holding a placard to commemorate the first anniversary of the devastating Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban City, central Philippines yesterday. Survivors of the strongest typhoon ever to hit land wept at mass graves yesterday, during ceremonies to mark one year since the storm devastated the central Philippines and condemned millions to deeper poverty. Photo: AFP
By Steff Gaulter
Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of Super Typhoon Haiyan hitting the Philippines. Haiyan was the strongest tropical cyclone on record ever to make landfall. No one was able to measure the winds directly, but from satellite observations they were estimated to be around 305-315 kph (190-195 mph). This makes the Haiyan the most powerful typhoon, hurricane or tropical cyclone that has ever been experienced anywhere in the world.
The strongest of the winds of a tropical system surround the central ‘eye’. The eye of Haiyan had a diameter of about 15 kilometres (9 miles), and the winds only decreased gradually away from the centre. It’s estimated that fourteen million people were affected by winds that were at least the equivalent of a category one hurricane in strength.
Although the winds were incredibly destructive, it was actually the storm surge that proved more deadly. Typhoons usually push a volume of water ahead of them, but due to the strength of Haiyan, the water was like a huge wall. The surge was over seven metres (23 feet) high in places. This is as high as a two-storey building and is higher than the majority of the buildings in Tacloban. The surge had the same devastating effect as a tsunami, with the wall of water bulldozing houses and flattening everything in its path.
The difference between a real tsunami and the storm surge experienced in the Philippines was that in the Philippines as the storm surge hit, the residents were also being battered by winds of up to 315 kph (195 mph). Those people who were flung into the water suddenly found themselves in a perilous environment, tossed about in the sea, surrounded by a vast amount of debris; people, animals, parts of people’s homes, even ships that had broken free from their moorings. It was incredibly dangerous, and it’s no wonder that so many thousands of people lost their lives.
In total, 6,100 people died in the storm, with another 1,060 still missing. This makes the storm the deadliest natural disaster on record in the Philippines, a country that is no stranger to natural disasters. The Philippines is regularly struck by earthquakes and flooding and is hit by an average of 20 typhoons each year. This frequency of typhoons, rather than ensuring that the population was equipped to deal with such disasters, actually lulled people into a false sense of security. Instead of evacuating, many residents decided to simply ‘ride out’ the storm, as they had done with many others.
Given that the storm was forecast to slam into the Philippines near Tacloban as a powerful super typhoon at least five days before impact, arguably the region should have been more prepared. Evacuations should have been mandatory and enforced, and the point of evacuation should have been a substantial distance away. Tragically some of those who moved into evacuation centres were killed, when the centres that were supposed to save them filled with water and became death traps.
As the storm cleared, bodies were strewn across the battered landscape. Family members were desperate to find one another; parents were looking for children, sisters for brothers and husbands for wives, whilst everybody was also looking for food, clean water and shelter.
After a few days aid slowly started to trickle into the region. In a situation this devastating, aid can never arrive fast enough. In this case, additional delay was due to the fact that many of the staff who would normally be first responders were themselves killed. Help had to come from outside the disaster zone and the destruction meant that roads were impassable, and there was nowhere for aircraft to land.
As aid started filtering into the area, there were rumours that its distribution was being politically led, with people alleging that the majority of it was going to the constituencies who had voted for the president. There were even allegations that some of the food had been dumped in landfill sites and buried. A disturbing report by the country’s Commission on Audit found that over a million US dollars of food had been wasted due to improper storage, and tens of millions of pounds originally intended for relief efforts had either been stored in government bank accounts or spent on government operations.
The mismanagement of aid was a crushing blow for those who had survived the typhoon, particularly because this is a region of the world where the majority of people don’t have insurance for their homes or their possessions. Despite this, many families have again made the region their homes, often on the sites of their homes that were destroyed in Haiyan. However, now their homes are built of whatever debris they could find: crumpled corrugated iron, white UN tents or old cardboard.
Clearly these new dwellings can barely keep out the region’s tropical showers, let alone protect against anything more threatening. If another storm hits the region, the number of fatalities will be far greater than it would have been before Typhoon Haiyan struck. We can only hope that the locals themselves have learnt that if it’s a super typhoon, they must act quickly and get out of its path — their lives are worth more than just possessions.
