Today finished shopping for the remainder of the relief items that we are buying north of Samar in the Philippines, then we head into Samar. Though the girls were unusually able to get out of Samar several days ago, we havent been able to go back into Samar because we couldnt be reasonably sure that we could get out for weeks. We believe that now we can. We spoke with a man having contacts in the military. He said that the numbers of dead reported in the media dont even scratch the surface. Its not several thousand, but rather, it could run into the tens of thousands. They are still flying in body bags, not able (to put it rather indelicately) to keep up with the demand. The ocean surge in Tacloban was so utterly complete, yet so slow to recede, it left bodies buried in up to 8 ft of debri. He said that they are having trouble finding bodies buried that deep because even the dogs trained to sniff out corpses arent able to smell the bodies. Life threatening diseases around Tacloban are emerging due to the continuing decomposition of so many bodies. (We will not be going near that particular area of the country, as our efforts will be focused further north of Tacloban.) I have no words for what I feel. The scope of such a horrible event is impossible to absorb. We met a 65 year old man who lost his 13 year old boy. His precious boy went down under the muddy water once, he came up and went down a second time an breathed in too much sandy water, right in front of this man, helpless to save him because he was trying to stay alive while also fighting the powerful surge to save his older son an 2 daughters. The full story only gets more devastatingly heartbreaking, and will profoundly change me. I cannot post some of the more vivid stories that even Jackie herself witnessed upon temporarily returning to Tacloban right after the storm to look for those she knew. Many here have still not heard from relatives and friends. For so many, more than two weeks after the strongest typhoon to hit land in recorded history, all reasonable hope is extremely dim for ever hearing from them again. Yet even now, as a matter of day to day routine, and as I interact with the people of the Philippines, Ive observed that they are truly the happiest people Ive met in my life, but when the subject of the typhoon arises, you can almost see the life drain from their eyes, replaced with a deep sorrow. Everywhere you go throughout the Philippines, much needed fundraising for the victims is beautifully rampant. This country has taken a blow from a natural disaster like few countries have ever experienced in recent history. To understand scope of this tragedy, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans killed 1836 people, with an additional 705 assumed dead. In 2011, the deadly tsunami in Japan killed just over 18,000. The death toll from this current typhoon in the Philippines (in Tacloban alone) has likely killed 10s of thousands, with an estimated (by one report) 10-15 thousand still buried in the debri.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 20:46:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015