I read about Typhoon Yolande in MacClean's magazine last year. I remember thinking how awful it must have been and was struck by the enormity of the devastation..... and then I turned the page and started to read about the next bit of news. There is nothing like walking in the streets where such a tragedy has occurred to drive home the horror. One of our stops over the last week was Tacloban City. Nothing could have prepared me for this. This city, the seat of Government in the Philippines, was flattened by Typhoon Yolande on November 8th last year. There is not a building in the city that was not touched. Driving thru the streets you can still see where most buildings have the windows broken out or roofs ripped off. The airport is still being reconstructed and because of the damage to the runways large aircraft are still unable to land. It was flattened and much of the runway was destroyed. It looks like a war zone here. Yolande packed winds of 315km per hour making it the strongest documented typhoon anywhere. The storm surge was three metres high and reached the first floor ceiling of everything in its path. People here say that over 15,000 people were killed altho only 6300 deaths have been recorded. Eleven million people were affected and many of those are still homeless. The United Nations, Unicef, The WHO and many other humanitarian organizations still have a large presence here and are seen everywhere on the streets. I sat next to the airline stewardess and struck up a conversation. She said that the first flight that she took into the city after the Typhoon is forever imprinted on her mind. She could see dead bodies all over the mountainside upon landing and when they opened the doors of the aircraft the smell of rotting flesh almost made her sick. It looks the way I imagine Haiti looked after the earthquake. It makes me realize how fragile we really are.
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