USA TODAY International Edition
Fifty miles separated survival from havoc
ORMOC, The port PHILIPPINES town of Ormoc on Leyte Island, known for its lively waterfront of restaurants and bars, is in near total darkness when night falls.
The few spots of battery- charged lighting illuminate tired faces on the sidewalks of this first- class city of nearly 200,000 known for its top colleges, fields of sugar cane, pineapple and the largest geothermal power plant in Southeast Asia.
But on this night, people are waiting to recharge their cellphones to reach loved ones. Others are running out of money since ATMs aren’t working. Food and water are hard to come by.
Yet they are thankful that they are not 50 miles to the northeast of the island, where the city of Tacloban took the full force of Typhoon Haiyan. Winds of 147 mph thrashed the city with waves and funneled the raging ocean into Leyte Gulf, filling the land with seawater and drowning an as yet undetermined number of people.
“We all cried and prayed, and thank God only the roof was blown off, and we are all OK,” said Tina Delacerna, who was holed up in her village near Ormoc with five family
members as winds up to 147 mph rattled their home for five hours.
Delacerna, 40, was unable to call her husband who, like many Filipinos, works in Dubai. She reached him two days later to say she was OK.
Typhoon Haiyan rammed into the eastern shore of this island in the central Philippines on Friday and its devastation is still being revealed as emergency workers move through cities and villages to help.
From the air, cities like Tacloban appear as if they were stomped on. Streets and harbors are piled with lumber, furniture, overturned cars and the remains of smashed homes. Warehouses missing roofs look like boxes filled with junk. Ships had been tossed inland, bridges washed away.
“I don’t believe there is a single structure that is not destroyed or severely damaged in some way — every single building, every single house,” U. S. Marine Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy said after flying over Tacloban. The United States has supplied five C- 130 cargo planes and four MV- 22 Ospreys to aid the relief effort.
“I don’t believe there is a single structure that is not destroyed.”
U. S. Marine Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy
The United Nations estimated at least 10,000 died but no one knows for sure. Armed thieves roamed neighborhoods robbing food from homes. Stores have been looted, utility pipes broken into for water.
Philippine soldiers were distributing food and water in Tacloban and other areas and assessment teams from the U. N. and other aid groups were seen for the first time. The U. S. military dispatched food, water, generators and more than 200 Marines to the city, the first outside help in what will swell into a major international relief mission.
The United States announced it was sending $ 20 million in humanitarian aid, including food, shelter materials and hygiene kits.
“Please tell my family I’m alive,” said Erika Mae Karakot as she lined up for aid. “We need water and medicine because a lot of the people we are with are wounded. Some are suffering from diarrhea and dehydration due to shortage of food and water.”
BODIES STREWN EVERYWHERE
Police guarded stores to prevent looting. But few were tasked to carrying away the dead. Corpses could be seen lying along the main road from the regional airport to Tacloban. Some bodies were draped in trees or floating in stagnant seawater. The military said it lacked body bags to put them in or power to preserve them.
In Ormoc, small attempts were made to bring life back to normal. A telecom firm set up free charging stations and some cellphone signals were restored.
Survivors spent Monday searching for news of relatives, hunting supplies and chasing down electricity and cellphone signals in streets still littered with trees and debris.
“It may be three to four months before electricity is restored, so we offered free charging at eight sites from Sunday so people can tell their loved ones they are safe,” said Joel Biol, 40, a telecom engineer for Globe Telecom. “At times like this, the cellphone is a second lifeline.”
Though the storm has passed, the rains have not. Tina Delacerna says her family has to crouch under tables when rain falls through their now open roof. They were luckier than neighbors whose entire houses were lost, she said. The children’s school was ruined, their neighborhood church in this heavily Catholic country was destroyed.
“It feels like a haunted city, the streets are a jumble of trees and wires,” said Mary Eileen Martinez, food and beverage manager at the Omroc Villa Hotel, which has stayed partly open despite lacking power and extensive room damage.
Rozel Brase, a ballroom dance instructor, recalled the night of terror she and her family lived through. “My daughter was crying and hugging me tight all the time, as the winds hit and blew off our roof,” Brase, 27, said of the 5- year- old.
MIRACULOUS SURVIVAL
Many were amazed they survived. Larry Womack said he stayed at his beachside home and was trapped when seawater engulfed it. He climbed onto a roof beam that stayed miraculously attached to the wall.
“The roof was lifting up and the wind was coming through and there were actual waves going over my head,” he said. “The sound was loud. It was just incredible.”
Marvin Daga, 19, a student in Tacloban, tried to ride out the storm in his home with his ailing father, Mario, but a surge of water from the sea dislodged the home from its foundation and carried their house away.
They clung to each other while the house floated for a while, but it eventually crumbled and they fell into churning waters. Marvin grabbed a coconut tree with one hand and his father with the other, but his father slipped out of his grasp.
“I hope that he survived,” Marvin said in an army medic room, tears filling his eyes. “But I’m not expecting to find him anymore.”
Jonelle Ymas, 43, head of field operations for Globe Telecom in Leyte, said people are coping in the Philippine waywhen a disaster hits.
“They move on and smile, even though they may be depressed inside,” he said. “We work as a team and treat each other as family and help each other out.”
Amid despair, life still blossomed here. Emily Ortega, 21, who was about to give birth, was in an evacuation center as the ocean rose 20 feet the night of the typhoon. She swam to a post and held on until the wind died down and the water stilled.
Two days later she gave birth at the airport to a baby girl. Bea Joy Sagales appeared in good health, and among the first sounds she heard was applause from military medics and others who assisted in the delivery.