Philippines tragedy

As the hours pass, the scale of the impact of typhoon Haiyan on the Philippine archipelago becomes apparent, and in the words of the Philippine director of the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), it is “absolute bedlam”. Haiyan is said to be the most powerful storm ever recorded on the entire planet. Casualty figures are incomplete, but there may be as many as 10,000 dead in the city of Tacloban alone. The Philippine government was prepared as well as it could be — typhoons are not uncommon — but the ferocity of the storm in many cases wrecked the facilities that were there to protect the population and killed or injured those who would be the first-responders in the immediate aftermath. Many outlying islands have yet to be reached and the expectation is that they will be no less affected than Tacloban, which has literally been flattened and where bodies are being buried in mass graves.

International aid is mobilising and once again there will be a vast effort to bring relief to a stricken people. Lessons have been learned from the tsunami of December 2004, particularly the necessity for effective coordination between agencies and the need to avoid duplication of effort. The Philippine government is still in shock and cannot be blamed for any delay in the delivery of assistance — yet. The quality of life for survivors in the short to medium term is going to depend on an international rapid response followed by a sustained period of support to rebuild lives and infrastructure. There was considerable criticism of the international relief effort for the 2004 tsunami which, in many cases, ceased once the ‘emergency’ phase was over. This must not happen this time around. The wider world has a short attention span when it comes to disaster response, quickly moving on to whatever else has popped over the horizon. Aid today must not lead to neglect and abandonment tomorrow, as it regrettably has so often in the past.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12^th, 2013.

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