Philippines Raises Death Toll From Typhoon Haiyan Relief Trucks Struggle to Reach Stricken Areas By Cris Larano Updated Nov. 15, 2013 6:17 a.m. ET WSJ Video: online.wsj/news/articles/SB10001424052702303789604579198881386393174?mod=djemalertAsianews Philippines Raises Death Toll From Typhoon Haiyan Relief Trucks Struggle to Reach Stricken Areas Seven days after Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, theres still confusion over how many people were killed in the disaster. The WSJs Enda Curran gives us an update and says the people of Tacloban are struggling in bad conditions. MANILA—The Philippines disaster relief agency raised the official death toll Friday from Typhoon Haiyan to 3,621, as some trucks loaded with food, petrol and other supplies were stuck in traffic jams stretching up to two miles long on their way to ferries in the southern tip of Luzon that would take them to stricken central provinces of Samar and Leyte. View Slideshow Hundreds of typhoon survivors waited for the first evacuation flight of the day at the airport in Tacloban on Friday. AP Enlarge Image A woman walked along a devastated area in Tacloban City on Thursday. Getty Images Eduardo del Rosario, chief of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, announced the figures to reporters in Manila following the United Nations release of a higher number—4,460—Thursday night. Mr. del Rosario said his agency was trying to validate the higher total but cautioned that it would be meticulous in adding to the death rolls, only including those victims who had been positively identified by name. Mr. del Rosario cited a cautionary tale of a mayor—whose identity he withheld--who initially reported a large number of fatalities. But the actual number after Mr. del Rosarios agency checked, turned to be less than half of what the mayor claimed. If we just rely on the figures that they give us and we dont validate on the ground, then we would have a figure higher than the 3,621 that we have now. Or earlier, two days ago, the 2,000 would have been double, Mr. del Rosario said. We really have to validate, so that, more or less, we are closer to the truth…. And if it rises, it is the result of validation, Mr. del Rosario said. He said staff of his disaster agency go to village leaders and funeral parlors to double check if the deaths reported to them are accurate. He said burying people in mass graves before an actual count is made a major challenge to the accuracy of their tally. President Benigno Aquino III has cautioned officials not offer estimates after a police general said last Sunday that the deaths could reach 10,000. The general was removed from his job on Thursday to undergo a so-called stress debriefing. Relief aid is being flown or trucked in to Leyte and Samar. Military planes are getting into devastated Tacloban City airport and the airstrip in Guiuan, unloading supplies and picking up storm victims desperate to get out. But the land route for trucks has proven challenging. Under normal circumstances, trucks would take about 18 hours to haul goods from Manila to Leyte and Samar, which are islands. In addition to traveling on roads, the trucks have to go onto ferries. But ferry service is half what it was before the typhoon—down to about 11 roundtrips a day from the normal between 24 and 26. We were experiencing bottlenecks at the port of Matnog, said Mr. del Rosario, referring to the closest port in the southern tip of Luzon to the island of Samar. Ferry owners were delaying their trips because 1. they dont have enough passengers and 2. cargo on the way back from Samar to Matnog because of economic losses of running a half-full ferry, he said. Mr. del Rosario said the situation is starting to ease, with more trips happening. Aside from trucks filled with relief goods and cars with relief workers, petrol tankers are also among those caught in the traffic jams. Petrol is a precious commodity on the stricken islands, not just 1. to fuel vehicles to get around places that needed help, 2. but to feed power generators that provide electricity to charge cellular phone batteries and 3. light up hospitals and 4. power other vital establishments, such as banks and money transfer agents. Typhoon Haiyan knocked down transmission towers and power lines that delivered electricity produced in Leytes rich geothermal fields A) to Samar, B) to Cebu, C) to Negros and D) even to the main island of Luzon. Around nine million people have been affected by Haiyan, with nearly 1.5 million displaced by the strongest typhoon to ravage the country in two decades. Mr. Aquino is urging volunteers to reach a goal of packing each day a total 140,000 bags of relief goods, each of which is enough to sustain a family of five for up to three days. On Thursday, Nov 14, 2013 Mr. Aquino made the rounds of five government relief centers in the capital, rallying the people to volunteer to help victims repair their broken lives. Meanwhile, illustrating the confusion around death counts, the mayor of Tacloban backpedaled on his estimates of dead, saying the most recent correct death toll was at 801, with 282 missing. He defended a delay in burying the dead and promised fresh efforts to utilize a temporary mass grave. Complicating the burial efforts has been delays in identifying the dead, Mayor Alfred S. Romualdez said. We do not have the manpower any more to pick [corpses] up, the Mayor said, adding that up to 40 percent of the citys population has left since the typhoon struck. Around Tacloban City, some signs of normalcy appeared. Cigarette stalls and some gas stations have reopened, and traders offered cooked meat. Though the citys official population stands at more than 220,000, prior to the typhoon, aid workers and the mayor say its population had grown to closer to three or four times that size, in part swelled by outsiders seeking refuge from the storm. But many people have been pressing their way out of Tacloban, on foot, motorbike or by plane. Streets were in many places quiet and emptied, a marked contrast to the crush of previously people thronging the streets searching for food, loved ones or information. People cant do anything constructive if there are no stores open, Mayor Romualdez said. People want to fix their houses. Theyll wait until it comes back to normal and then they come back. Elsewhere in the city, as the sun beat down Friday, dozens of volunteers were fanning out, mopping floors and distributing relief. Blue-uniformed officials cleared debris. Seated near City Hall on a lone chair wearing a yellow T-shirt, a bright dot amid a ruined coffee shop whose hanging glass-lantern fixtures had miraculously stayed intact, Ronnel Advincula, 32, was among those who pledging to stay. I have no plan to escape because I love this place, said Mr. Advincula, who works as a hospital janitor. Six years ago, he said, he was a subsistence rice farmer hours outside of town, and his life has improved tremendously since coming to Tacloban, something he feels grateful for. Though Mr. Advincula has yet to receive any government relief—he has been relying on handouts from private charities --he says he is willing to stay as long as it takes for the city to rebound. He thinks that could take easily a year or more. The people here are so friendly, he says. Though now maybe not as much, because everyone is hungry. Karen Tragura, 15, who waited in line to receive a supply of potable water from her family, said she and her family were preparing to move back to their home after spending days holed up in an evacuation center. Her parents, she said, were at home wielding brooms and mops. It took us six days to clean up, but now its almost done, she said. And we are all safe. Mervin Macion, 17, has volunteered to help. His family was considering leaving for a big city like Manila, he said, but he said he is determined to stay. I have so many memories here, he said, including hip-hop dances and martial arts. But he said he was worried about what happened to most of his friends. I still dont know where they are, he said. —Enda Curran and Te-Ping Chen contributed to this article.
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 15:27:18 +0000
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