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Typhoon Haiyan: almost 1,000 confirmed dead
Last updated four minutes agoLive Toll expected to rise with 10,000 feared dead and relief efforts hampered by devastation
- Survivor: 'I was not prepared for the devastation'
- Philippines urges end to climate talks deadlock
- How you can help the typhoon Haiyan relief effort
- The worst affected areas
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Typhoon Haiyan survivors desperate for food• Toll expected to rise with 10,000 feared dead
• Heavy rains feared in south and central Philippines
• How you can help the Haiyan relief effort
• Share your stories, videos and photos via GuardianWitnessA man paints a message on a baskeball court that reads 'Help SOS We Need Food' at Anibong in Tacloban Photograph: NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images Here's a picture of Bea Joy, the baby girl born at Tacloban airport.
New-born baby Bea Joy is held as mother Emily Ortega, 21, rests after giving birth at an improvised clinic at Tacloban airport Monday Nov. 11, 2013 in Tacloban city, Leyte province in central Philippines. Photograph: Bullit Marquez/AP Naderev Saño - also known as Yeb - has announced that he will fast until a "meaningful outcome is in sight".
"We can fix this. We can stop this madness. Right now, right here," he told delegates at the UN climate talks in Warsaw.
Choking on his words, he said he was waiting in agony for news from relatives caught in the super-storm's path, though he was relieved to hear his brother had survived:
In the last two days he has been gathering bodies of the dead with his own two hands … I will now commence a voluntary fasting for the climate. This means I will voluntarily refrain from eating food during this [conference] until a meaningful outcome is in sight.
(Via AP)
Tania Branigan tweets this from China
RT @cctvnews: 7 people have died due to super typhoon Haiyan in south China’s Hainan and Guangxi. Over 2m ppl affected in Hainan. (Xinhua)
— tania branigan (@taniabranigan) November 11, 2013AP reports on the efficacy of the Philippine government's disaster management plan:
As dire forecasts poured in to predict a storm that would be among the most powerful on record, authorities prepared by evacuating people from flimsy homes along the coast to concrete structures farther inland.
Similar tactics had worked only weeks earlier when powerful Cyclone Phailin struck India's eastern shore, killing just 25 people as thousands more sheltered in government evacuation centers away from the sea.
And Vietnam appeared to have successfully evacuated some 600,000 people before a weakened Haiyan arrived there early Monday.
But Philippine officials had not anticipated the 6-metre (20-foot) storm surges that swept through Tacloban, capital of the island province of Leyte, which saw the worst of Haiyan's damage.
And while many perished in shelters, others ignored the evacuation and stayed put in their homes, either out of fear their property would fall prey to looters or because they underestimated the risk.
"I was talking to the people of Tacloban," said senior presidential aide Rene Alemendras. "They said 'we were ready for the wind. We were not ready for the water.'
"We tried our very best to warn everybody," he said. "But it was really just overwhelming, especially the storm surge."
While the storm surge proved deadly, much of the initial destruction was caused by winds blasting at 235 kilometres per hour (147 mph) that occasionally blew with speeds of up to 275 kph (170 mph), howling like jet engines.
Here's a crowd-sourced map of shelters, hospitals and disaster zones put together by the Google crisis reponse team.
This from Naderev Saño (see below), who's just addressed the UN climate summit in Warsaw.
To anyone who continues to deny the reality that is climate change, I dare you to get off your ivory tower and away from the comfort of you armchair.
I dare you to go to the islands of the Pacific, the islands of the Caribbean and the islands of the Indian ocean and see the impacts of rising sea levels; to the mountainous regions of the Himalayas and the Andes to see communities confronting glacial floods, to the Arctic where communities grapple with the fast dwindling polar ice caps, to the large deltas of the Mekong, the Ganges, the Amazon, and the Nile where lives and livelihoods are drowned, to the hills of Central America that confronts similar monstrous hurricanes, to the vast savannas of Africa where climate change has likewise become a matter of life and death as food and water becomes scarce.
Not to forget the massive hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern seaboard of North America.
And if that is not enough, you may want to pay a visit to the Philippines right now.
(via Responding to Climate Change)
Lots of people are asking what they can do to help. Here's a list of who's doing what - and what they're asking for. Click on the links to donate to your chosen charity.
AP has this heartbreaking dispatch from St Michael the Archangel, a Tacloban church that is being used as a makeshift morgue as the city stuggles to cope with its dead. It tells of how a father tried, in vain, to save his two-year-old son from the floodwaters of the typhoon:
Ten bodies have been placed on wooden pews and across a pale white floor slick with blood, debris and water. One appears to have foamed at the mouth.
One has been wrapped in a white sheet, tied to a thick green bamboo pole so that people could carry it, and placed on the floor.
One body is small, and entirely covered in a red blanket.
"This is my son," says Nestor Librando, a red-eyed, 31-year-old carpenter. "He drowned."
Librando had taken refuge in a military compound nearby by time the typhoon's storm surge poured in Friday morning.
For two hours, the water rose around him. He held his 2-year-old son in one arm, his 3-year-old son in the other.
But the torrent proved too strong, and swept the family out of the building. The water rose above Librando's head and he struggled to swim.
His younger son slipped from his hands and was immediately pulled under the water.
I found his body later, behind the house. This is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life, the worst thing I could imagine. I brought him to this chapel because there was nowhere else to take him. I wanted Jesus Christ to bless him.
UpdatedSaño's anger and despair over the failure to tackle climate change is clear from his tweets ...
#StopTheMadness #COP19Warsaw We must stop the madness
— Yeb Saño (@yebsano) November 11, 2013My colleague John Vidal wrote this piece from the Doha climate change negotiations almost a year ago. In it, he describes how Naderev Saño, the lead negotiator of the Philippine delegation, broke down as he told the talks of the devastation caused in his country by Typhoon Bopha.
He told John:
We have not seen any money from the rich countries to help us to adapt. So more and more people die every year. I feel very frustrated. I was very emotional because it tears your heart out when you know your people are feeling the impact. We cannot go on like this. It cannot be a way of life that we end up running always from storms.
Worth reading in the aftermath of Haiyan.
A witness report of the moment the typhoon hit Cebu city, from commenter Kookaro:
It blew out the power, tore the metal sheeting off a nearby apartment block, flattened palm, banana and coconut trees and sent rivers of rain water down the road.
I was fortunate to be living in a relatively robust and modern concrete building. The destruction in Tacloban and Samar is near-total. A terrible tragedy for these are already some of the poorest communities in the Visayas region. That there is widespread 'looting' - or more accurately, a desperate search for food, water, shelter - is not a surprise given the situation.
Natural disasters, such as the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Bohol last month and now this typhoon, can never be prevented, but they do need to be planned for - as the world continues to heat up, as the weather patterns become increasingly dynamic, so we need to be better prepared. We also need to be that much more responsible to the planet, and to each other.
The International Rescue Committee, which is now led by the former British foreign secretary David Miliband, has kicked off a $10m appeal to help victims of the typhoon. Miliband has described the aftermath of Haiyan as a "humanitarian catastrophe that needs a global coordinated response". He adds:
We have today taken the decision to deploy emergency relief coordinators to the Philippines, with a view to deciding with the host government which of IRC's areas of expertise — from water and sanitation to education — are most needed.
There is now a serious risk of major public health outbreaks, which means that health systems need urgent reinforcement. The number of people affected or in danger is still emerging but the Philippines government has increased its estimate from 4.3 to 9.5 million people. And we know that more than 28 million people were within the storm’s path.
Our global development correspondent, Mark Tran, has been talking to Leonard Doyle, head of online communications at the International Organisation for Migration in Manila, about the challenges of coordinating the relief response.He told Mark:
The Philippine government is very much in control of the relief effort. It is very organised. It is in the lead so it is unlikely that you will have a scenario of every one piling in an uncoordinated way. The challenge is huge but you have a government that is coherent and which works well with donors. President Benigno Aquino is very much present, very engaged. It is a well-functioning government at multiple levels. The wild card is the sheer extent of the disaster.
Doyle said the IOM was seeking funds for two million solar radios with lights, adding:
Information is a form of aid. People without information get very distressed, they need to be informed where aid is available, where to go. That is not possible with powerlines down. Radios can be a lifesaving tool.
The US marines we mentioned earlier have begun overflying the disaster area and a senior officer has described the scene as one of "total devastation".
Speaking after a two-hour flight on Monday with Philippine forces, US Marine Brigadier General Paul Kennedy said every building and house he saw was destroyed or severely damaged.
"We saw bodies everywhere," he said. Some were floating in the water, others in a schoolyard.
He said trees were uprooted for miles around, roads were impassable and power lines were down.
"I don't know how else you can describe total devastation," Kennedy said at the airport in the badly hit Philippine city of Tacloban.
Two US Marine C-130 cargo planes were parked nearby, their engines running, unloading food and water from Manila. (Via AP)
According to AP in Beijing, Typhoon Haiyan has caused at least two deaths in China:
The typhoon's huge waves and heavy wind have torn a ship from its moorings in southern China and prevented rescue of the crew.
The cargo ship, moored on Hainan island, was driven out to sea as the typhoon swept past on Sunday.
Attempts to rescue the crew by ship, speed boat and helicopter were forced back.
The Xinhua news agency said two bodies were found on Monday; five crew members are missing.
The Standby Task Force - whose volunteers sift through information such as tweets and images posted online to map the impact of natural disasters to help first responders on the ground - is looking for more people to help out with its efforts for Typhoon Haiyan.
Details of what the task force does and how volunteers can pitch in are here. Their Typhoon Haiyan map is here.
942 confirmed dead – Philippine military
Latest offical death toll: The Philippine military says it has confirmed 942 people have died in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.
Military spokesman Lt Jim Alagao said on Monday that 275 others were confirmed missing from the storm, one of the strongest on record.
The death toll is expected to rise considerably. Two provincial officials predicted on Sunday that it could reach 10,000 or more.
Disrupted transportation and communications links have made it difficult to count the dead and distribute relief goods. Destruction from the typhoon, which slammed into the central Philippines on Friday, was extensive, with debris blocking roads and trapping decomposing bodies. (Via AP)
UpdatedIf you have been affected by Typhoon Haiyan, you can tell us your stories by sharing your photos and videos via GuardianWitness.
Here's a statement from the UN:
The Secretary-General is extremely concerned by the impact of Typhoon Haiyan, one of the largest storms to ever make landfall, which has affected some 9.5 million people in the Philippines and caused widespread destruction and displacement. The death toll appears to be rising steeply, as remote areas are reached.
The Secretary-General has spoken to H.E. Libran N. Cabactulan, the Permanent Representative of the Philippines, and offered the support of the United Nations to the people and Government of the Philippines, as they cope with the disaster.
The Secretary-General notes that the United Nations and humanitarian partners, in close coordination with local and national authorities, have quickly ramped up critical relief operations to help families in desperate need. While many communities are very difficult to reach, with roads, airports and bridges destroyed or blocked with debris, agencies have begun airlifting food, health, shelter, medical and other life-saving supplies and have deployed specialist teams and vital logistics support.
The Secretary-General thanks UN Member States for their prompt response, including bilateral funds, relief teams and civil-military support. He urges the international community to continue to show their solidarity with the people of the Philippines.
Therapeutic food supplements for children, medical kits, and water and hygiene supplies have been mobilized to support some 13,000 families in the affected areas, while food, logistics and communications equipment, and thousands of tarpaulins are being flown to the typhoon-hit areas.
UpdatedGreg Barrow, UK spokesman for the World Food Programme, on the difficulties aid agencies are facing in the Philippines.
Security a rising challenge in response to #haiyan. Population movement from countryside into urban areas looking for food/water/relief.
— Greg Barrow (@GregoryBarrow) November 11, 2013.@JustineGreening: 4 more UK experts on way to help with intl response including protection of vulnerable girls and women @Daybreak #Haiyan
— DFID (@DFID_UK) November 11, 2013My colleague Tania Branigan has this report on the pleas for help coming from the Philippines:
Around 10,000 people are feared to have died in the weekend's disaster - with the armed forces reporting a confirmed death toll of 942 as of Monday afternoon. Information is only now trickling out from previously cut-off towns.
"The situation is bad, the devastation has been significant. In some cases the devastation has been total," Secretary to the Cabinet Rene Almendras told a news conference.
"The only reason why we have no reports of casualties up to now is that communications systems ... are down," reported Colonel John Sanchez of the Armed Forces of the Philippines after posting aerial pictures of the apocalyptic scenes in Guiuan, eastern Samar, where Haiyan first made landfall.
Ranulfo Docdocan, a reporter for the Philippine news channel ABS-CBN who was feared missing along with his crew after the typhoon struck, has resurfaced with video footage of the storm tearing into Guiuan in the Eastern Samar province. (Via ABS-CBN).
Dr Steven Godby, an expert in disaster management at Nottingham Trent university, has this quick take on how he expects the relief effort to work:
Despite the difficulties we have been hearing of in accessing the worst affected area, damage and needs assessment missions will be taking place by air. In addition the International Charter Space and Natural Disasters has been activated which will help provide access to satellite imagery of the region and this can be used to help assess the extent and scale of the situation on the ground even if roads and airports are closed.
International aid response
Reuters has a good round-up the current state of the international aid response to the typhoon:
• The UK announced $9.6 million (£6m) package for up to 500,000 people including temporary shelter, water, plastic sheeting and household items
• Australia announced a $10 million package, including medical personnel and non-food items such as tarpaulins, sleeping mats, mosquito nets, water containers and hygiene kits
• New Zealand will give $1.8m in aid.
• Japan is to send a 25-strong emergency medical relief team
• Indonesia is to dispatch aircraft and logistical aid including personnel, drinking water, food, generators, antibiotics and other medication
• The US has sent a team of about 90 marines and sailors, part of a first wave of promised US military assistance
• The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is sending emergency shelter and hygiene materials expected to arrive early this week. It is sending 55 tonnes of emergency food to feed 20,000 children and 15,000 adults for up to five days
• The US embassy is sending $100,000 for water and sanitation support
• The European Commission said it would provide $4 million to help worst-affected areas
• China will give a total of $200,000 in cash in aid
• The International Rescue Committee will dispatch an emergency team and has launched a $10 million appeal for aid
• Medecins Sans Frontieres is strengthening its teams with an additional 30 people including medical personnel, logisticians and psychologists arriving in coming days. MSF is also sending 200 tons of medical and relief items
• Unicef is airlifting $1.3 million worth of supplies including water purification tablets, soap, medical kits, tarpaulins, and micro nutrient supplements
• The World Food Programme is airlifting 40 tonnes of high-energy biscuits - enough to feed 120,000 people for a day - as well as emergency supplies and communications equipment
UpdatedThese pictures, taken by Trevor Holmes, show the devastation inflicted on Malapascua island, Cebu.
The destruction wrought on Malapascua island, Cebu. Photograph: Trevor Holmes/Facebook The Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC), a co-operative of more than a dozen leading UK charities, is expected to launch an appeal to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the Philippines.
The group of 14 NGOs, which includes the British Red Cross and Oxfam, has raised more than £1.1 billion in response to massive human tragedies.
The DEC elicited donations of more than £72 million following the 2010 floods in Pakistan, £107 million for the earthquake in Haiti and a record-breaking £392 million after a tsunami devastated much of south east Asia in 2004.
The international development secretary has been explaining how the UK is responding to the crisis.
Justine Greening said NHS experts had been flown with shelter kits and water purification facilities to Tacloban, where 10,000 people are believed to have died after Typhoon Haiyan struck on Friday.
The £6m British rapid response is being co-ordinated with aid agencies that already have a presence "on the ground", the minister told ITV's Daybreak.
But organisations are being hampered by widespread devastation. Emergency workers have been restricted by blocked roads and damaged airports as they raced to deliver tents, food and medicines to eastern Leyte Province.
Greening told the programme:
Prime Minister Cameron offered President Aquino our full support over the weekend. We have already released £6 million of support and that will go on to do two things.
Gareth Owen, humanitarian director for Save the Children, appeared alongside Greening to pledge his support for the mission. He said he hoped the British public would support the charity's efforts "as they always do", adding:
First of all, a rapid response facility. In other words, we have already got experts out there on the ground, more are flying in now and should be with them later today.
That is focused on providing shelter kits - you saw some of the conditions people having to face at the moment.
Also this issue of water, so water purification kits, and then expert advice. We've also flown out two NHS experts, and I think what we'll now do is quickly assess the scale of the needs.
Save the Children has worked in the Philippines for many years and we've responded to many disasters like this, but frankly nothing on this scale.
This is simply extraordinary in the extent of the damage. We had a team on the ground in Tacloban ahead of the storm because we had a few days to prepare there.
They were hunkered down over the weekend, we lost contact with them and feared the worst. Thankfully, they're OK, but they are reporting 80% damage in that city alone. This is huge.
Survivors are wandering through the remains of their flattened wooden homes in the city of Tacloban, hoping to find loved ones and salvage some of their belongings, according to the Associated Press.
Residents have stripped malls, shops and homes of food, water and consumer goods. Officials said some of the looting smacked of desperation but in other cases items taken included TVs, refrigerators, Christmas trees and a treadmill. An AP reporter in the town said he saw around 400 special forces and soldiers patrolling downtown to guard against further chaos.
Bobbie Womack, a US missionary and longtime Tacloban resident, said:
We're afraid that it's going to get dangerous in town because relief goods are trickling in very slow. I know it's a massive, massive undertaking to try to feed a town of over 150,000 people. They need to bring in shiploads of food.
The president of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino III, said he was considering declaring a state of emergency or martial law in Tacloban.
A state of emergency usually includes curfews, price and food supply controls, military or police checkpoints and increased security patrols.
AP also brings a little piece of good news from the flattened city of Tacloban: a girl has been born at the city's airport.
Cheers broke out Monday in the typhoon-devastated airport of the city of Tacloban in the Philippines when 21-year old Emily Ortega gave birth to a baby girl.
Bea Joy Sagales appeared in good health. Her birth drew applause from others in the airport and military medics who assisted in her delivery. Her mother was in an evacuation centre when the storm surge hit and flooded the city.
Ortega had to swim and cling to a post to survive before she found safety at the airport. Her husband in Manila was unaware of what has happened.
The Associated Press reports that a US military plane carrying relief supplies and a contingent of marines has left the Philippine capital bound for the eastern seaboard.
The C-130 left Manila's Vilamor air base on Monday loaded with bottled water, generators wrapped in plastic, a forklift and two trucks.
It was the first American relief flight to the region, where thousands are feared dead and tens of thousands more homeless as a result of Friday's typhoon.
The flight was headed for Tacloban, a city badly hit by the storm and in desperate need of assistance.
UpdatedIf you haven't seen it yet, Kate Hodal's dispatch from Manila gives a vivid account of the death and destruction Haiyan brought to the Philippines:
The distance from the airport to the centre of town is just seven miles by road, but the journey can easily take six hours. To get to Tacloban, the small city in Leyte province in the Philippines that was flattened on Friday by typhoon Haiyan, you have to manoeuvre through piled-up bodies, uprooted trees, jagged pieces of debris and survivors staggering around searching for food, water and supplies.
The coastal city of 222,000 inhabitants bore the brunt of 195mph winds as the strongest storm ever recorded tore off roofs and destroyed evacuation centres.
Storm surges of up to six metres in height turned roads into rivers of sewage and seawater, landing whole ships on top of houses and obliterating bridges and roads. At least 10,000 people are thought to have died so far in Leyte province alone, with the toll expected to rise ...
Good morning and welcome to the Guardian's live coverage of Typhoon Haiyan, which has now reached Vietnam after killing thousands of people in the Philippines.
The Vietnamese national weather forecast agency says Haiyan made landfall in the northern province of Quang Ninh at 5 am as a tropical storm and is moving toward southern China, where it is expected to weaken to a low depression later on Monday. No casualties or major damage have been reported.
Officials in Guangxi, southern China, have advised fishermen to stay onshore and told residents to take precautions against flooding and landslides.
Copy http://www.theguardian.com
Typhoon Haiyan: 942 confirmed dead in Philippines - live updates
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