Survivors take solace in Sunday prayer
Aid has been slow in arriving, but an enormous international relief operation picks up momentum
GUIUAN, Philippines: Grieving survivors of a monster typhoon in the mainly Catholic Philippines f locked to shattered churches yesterday, listening to soothing sermons and asking questions of God nine days after the storm ripped their communities apart.
The services offered a brief respite from the grinding battle to survive in the wastelands created by some of the strongest winds ever recorded and tsunami-like waves that destroyed dozens of coastal towns and killed thousands of people.
Aid has been slow in arriving, but an enormous international relief operation picked up momentum over the weekend, bringing food, water and medical supplies and airlifting basic necessities to isolated communities.
Please have patience. These affected areas are really spread out. Benigno Aquino, Philippines president
The operation was galvanised by the arrival Thursday of the USS George Washington aircraft carrier, which immediately began airlifting large volumes of relief supplies to inland airstrips and isolated communities.
A British warship, the HMS Daring, was arrive yesterday, followed by the helicopter carrier HMS Illustrious – the largest ship in the British navy.
Japan has also confirmed it will send almost 1,200 troops to join relief efforts along with three warships, 10 planes and six helicopters – its military’s single largest aid deployment.
The Philippine government said yesterday that 3,681 had so far been confirmed dead in the disaster, with another 1,186 people missing.
The United Nations and other relief workers say the death toll will climb much higher over the coming months as a full assessment is made of the 600kilometre stretch of islands hit by Haiyan.
If the worst fears are realised, Haiyan could be the country’s deadliest natural disaster, surpassing the 1976 Moro Gulf tsunami that killed between 5,000 and 8,000 people on the southern island of Mindanao.
Dramatic video footage emerged yesterday showing the destructive size and power of the storm surge as it slammed into the Samar coastal town of Hernani, engulfing and sweeping away houses.
“It was like a huge tsunami,” said Nickson Gensis, a staff member of the child development agency Plan International who recorded the surge from the second floor of a house that withstood the impact.
UN Secretary General Ban Kimoon said Saturday that the super typhoon was an ‘urgent warning’ to mankind of the consequences of climate change.
Although many devotees in the Philippines were seeking comfort in God yesterday, for some the disaster was proving a severe test of their faith.
Father Edwin Bacaltos, the parish president at the Redemptorist Church in Tacloban, told AFP that people had repeatedly asked him why the catastrophe had occurred. “I didn’t give them any theological answer. I just listened and kept quiet. It’s not the time to rationalise,” he said. — AFP