The mountains of debris in the streets, the damaged trucks and equipment and lack of government personnel – all seemed to conspire to delay the arrival of much needed food and water to Yolanda victims in Tacloban and everywhere else in the region. The typhoon surge in the main streets of the city carried an assortment of damaged vehicles,uprooted trees, wood from devastated homes, household items and thick mud – and these blocked the streets that rendered them impassable. Heavy equipment was needed to clear them but Tacloban’s motorpool was paralyzed. Many of its vehicles were damaged by the sea water brought by the surge. Only a few trucks were available, Mayor Romuladez found out when he visited the engineering pool near the city hall. But the road to the airport had to be cleared because the day after the storm surge, C-130 planes had started to arrive with relief goods. These could not be moved from the airport if the main roads were not cleared.
Romualdez said he saw a DPWH payloader and a backhoe near the Coca Cola plant in Marabasras on the way to San Jose. Together with some unnamed personnel, they started clearing the road going to the airport at around 9:30. At 4 in the afternoon, a way to the airport was cleared where vehicles could pass single file. He said sometimes they had to push damaged vehicles out of the way, even as they tried to avoid dead bodies.
But in other important streets in the city, the debris remained as they were. Only this time, things were getting worse because the dead bodies were starting to rot, emitting a terrible smell. A Canadian tourist who experienced Yolanda first hand wrote in his blog that the bodies of dead people and animal had not been moved and were “now rotting in earnest.” People had to wear masks or wrapped their shirts around their mouths, but the smell was still overpowering, and that made breathing difficult. This was on the fourth day after the typhoon surge.[i]
On the fifth day, even the international media covering the event saw how disorganized the government’s response was to the calamity’s aftermath. CNN journalist Anderson Cooper in his report said what was happening in Tacloban was a “demolition, not a construction job…There is no real evidence of organized recovery or relief,” he noted. Cooper was among the top international journalists who were in the Visayas region covering the massive destruction inflicted by “Yolanda.”area. Fellow CNN journalist Paula Hancocks said the search and rescue never materialized.
“It is a very desperate situation, among the most desperate I’ve seen in covering disasters…You would expect perhaps to see a feeding center that had been set up for 5 days after the storm. We haven’t seen that, not in this area,” Cooper reported. Comparing this to what happened in Japan in 2011 after the earthquake where one could hardly see dead bodies scattered around two days after the event, he said Japanese soldiers used sticks to search for bodies and survivors. But in Tacloban no such effective operation to help those in need was in sight.
Although Palace spokesman Edwin Lacierda announced that relief goods were getting into the city, a reporter from the Associated Press who drove around Tacloban for 4 miles that Wednesday reported that there was “no evidence of any organized delivery of food, water or medical supplies, though piles of aid have begun to arrive at the airport.”
Even the national government had to admit that it was overwhelmed by the trail of destruction left by Yolanda. Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras admitted at a briefing in Malacañang that the Aquino administration was not fully prepared to deal with a humanitarian catastrophe of this magnitude. “We have not seen anything at the magnitude we’re seeing now. Hundreds of thousands (are affected) now. The magnitude is big,” he said. Five days after Yolanda struck, the national government had yet to reach all areas affected by the typhoon.
He said the government had limited resources. “You cannot imagine the degree of—you cannot imagine the magnitude of resources that need to be made available to do this,” said Almendras.Of the country’s 3 C 130 cargo planes, only two were functional. Moreover, there were safety issues that had to be considered. At that time, Tacloban did not have nigh-flying/landing capability. Moreover, the local executives, the barangay and municipal officials were themselves victims of the disaster. Thus, the breakdown of disaster-response mechanism on the ground.[ii]
On the other hand, the U.N. World Food Programme began distributing food in Tacloban, handing out rice to 3,000 people that Wednesday. Still that did not make a dent on the problem as an estimated two million people were desperately hungry.
No medicines
Compounding the food problem was the lack of medicines. The CNN news team witnessed for themselves how “cries of the suffering carried through a small, cramped one-story clinic in typhoon-ravaged Tacloban where the medicine was all but gone Thursday.” In the meantime, the number of wounded in the city continued to grow and they trooped to the only functioning clinic. It was one of the few places where those injured in Typhoon Yolanda and its aftermath could turn for help, or what little help there was six days after the storm.
"We don't have any medicines. We don't have any supplies. We have IVs, but it's running out. Most of the people don't have water and food. That's why they come here. Most of the kids are dehydrated. They are suffering from diarrhea and vomiting,” said Dr. Katrina Catabay, the medical officer.
(Continue here)
[ii] Tetch Torres-Tupas, “CNN, BBC, int’l media slam Aquino for ‘disorganized’ Yolanda aid response,” INQUIRER.net, Wednesday, November 13th, 2013 With a report from Michael Ubac, Philippine Daily Inquirer
[iii] Chelsea J. Carter, Anderson Cooper and Anna Coren, “Typhoon Haiyan: No medicine, little aid at Tacloban clinic,” CNN, November 14, 2013
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