Tuesday 3rd December
Hotel guests were coming in from the street, finishing their nights out, as we left for the airport and the 5am flight to Tacloban in the heart of the devastated area. As in other places that I have visited with CAFOD the rules of the road seem to be to go as fast as humanly possible and to overtake the vehicle in front !
Most on the 80-seater plane seemed to be relief workers of one type or another. We began our descent onto the island of Leyte, which took the full force of the typhoon and also suffered the water surge. Even from the air we noticed trees not just stripped of foliage but with trunks actually snapped in the 200 mph winds. Coconut trees are the most supple and can bend freely, but there were thousands of them just "cropped" by the force of the wind. As a vital source of revenue for fruit and timber and their loss is a major blow in itself.
The airport is a concrete building but gutted, with much of the upper storey collapsing. There were vast piles of tarpaulins, tents, and sacks of food; and being just after 6am things were beginning to wake up with soldiers and relief agency workers moving about. Most of the response management team here belong to Catholic Relief Services (the American equivalent of CAFOD, but of course much, much bigger).
And the level of devastation? Along the coast it must be true to say that no buildings were undamaged, no matter how robust. In Tacloban and neighbouring Palo it seems that ninety percent of buildings were totally destroyed and the others badly damaged. Even modern factories with steel and concrete structures have roofs peeled away and collapsed walls. The wind had done immense damage but the water surge actually moved whole rows of buildings hundreds of metres, and threw vehicles against buildings and into trees and open fields. Three weeks after the typhoon a great deal of work has been done to clear the roads of debris. Traffic can flow but both sides of the roads are chaos. Wooden houses have gone completely, replaced in these three weeks by shacks and cabins constructed out of the debris. The few brick and cement buildings are all damaged, mostly losing their roofs but also with serious damage to walls.
The CRS office in Palo is a twenty minute drive from the airport. As a concrete building it had been named as an evacuation centre and the first floor has been occupied by families since the storm. Relief workers sleep in tents in the corridors as this helps to minimise the danger of mosquitoes (which carrying dangerous diseases apart from malaria) and the nuisance of the many flies. We are given an explanation of the path the typhoon took across Leyte then over the open sea to the northern part of the island of Cebu. The densely populated coast from Takloban to Palo, Tanauan and Cogon had the worst damage and loss of life. Tanauan had a thousand casualties, Palo another two thousand – this area accounted for 5,000 of the 6,000 confirmed dead (of course, the death toll is not complete, as many rural areas are still not fully accounted for).
At Tanauan we met Fr Abraham at his parish church. In the sports ground he had buried almost 1,000 in a common grave two days after the typhoon. Many were well known to him, some as lay leaders. Here we saw water distributed through "bladders", huge rubber sacks which can be refilled by lorries containing smaller "bladders". It is much more efficient than trying to build reservoirs and keep water clean. The church had been flooded to about 5ft and had been the evacuation point for fifty families. No-one had died there, but the people had set out to clean and repair it immediately, so that it stands out from the devastation all around. A sign on the wall spoke of the church being a Jesuit foundation from something like 1704 which had survived a previous major typhoon. Next door was a very badly damaged school, but now the makeshift home for several families, including a young couple and their first tiny baby, born after the typhoon.
The next stop was to see a "Cash for Work" group. The water surge has created great piles of debris - building materials, fallen trees, house contents, vehicles and anything else in its path. These piles are everywhere, several metres high and densely packed. Men are hired to clear them, gaining work and pay for essential family needs and providing a very necessary community service. The group we visited had discovered three bodies in the last five days. After three weeks decaying bodies and rotting animal carcasses are a health hazard and have to be handled carefully. We then went to a centre where hygiene packs were distributed and explanation given about their purpose and need. They contained soap, towels and basics utensils and medicines.
Our last stop was at the Cathedral of Palo. Three months ago a major refurbishment had been completed; now ninety per cent of the roof has been peeled away and much of it still hangs precariously on one side of the building, with ancillary buildings also seriously damaged. The Archbishop was in the Cathedral during the typhoon with many families for whom it was a designated evacuation centre.
By 10.30am it was very hot and humid, the temperature well up in the thirties. The road to Ormoc marks the route of the typhoon. There are just one or two places where the wind had caused damage to the road surface and the villages away from the coast only suffered wind damage; but this is still immense. Just as we left Palo we passed the residence of the Archbishop which, being perched on a hill, had only been affected by the wind. But what a mess: a sturdy brick building with the roof gone and much of the second floor collapsed.
Pylons were down in their hundreds, big trees uprooted and the same level of destruction for buildings. Big notices in many villages asked for help and food for the people. Food needs are now largely being met, though the sight of children begging was difficult. Strangest were the valleys full of hundreds of coconut palms uniformly "cropped", the tops broken off by the force of the wind - it seemed as though they might have been deliberately harvested in that way. It looked as if the whole place had been felled for logging.
So much for the devastation. I have said nothing about the people. That, if anything, has been the bigger surprise. Words fail, really, with so many smiling faces and a remarkable acceptance of what has happened and that things must simply start again. We heard stories of drama and trauma, of people having homes collapse around them, of lost relatives, ruined livelihoods - but never a word of anger. All I heard was much repeated gratitude. At the distribution centre 150 families had gathered and registered for their packs. A very entertaining Filipino, a natural actor, explained the packs and some basic instructions, with some humour, to a very attentive audience and then they had queued quietly to receive them. They were full of smiles and thanks for the generosity of those providing the relief. Relief workers we spoke to said that in other places they had witnessed panic, aggression and anger, but not here in the Philippines. When our group was introduced as being from the UK, they smiled and waved and some applauded.
The ferry trip from Ormoc to Cebu was delightful, with views of mountains dropping to the water's edge; yet in clear sight of the villages on the shore there were so many signs of devastation. The final couple of miles into dock at Cebu was through a graveyard of redundant and rusting ships, although it seems there is good economic development here. It is quite extraordinary to find this city functioning so busily just 40 minutes by plane or three hours by ferry away from the devastation that we have seen today.
While it has been terrible to witness such destruction, there is an oddly positive feeling in the sheer determination of the people who are just getting on with life despite the setbacks and the tragedies of these weeks. A good lesson for the start of Advent.
