Super typhoon Haiyan leaves 100 dead, four million affected in the Philippines
Coordinated emergency response key for overstretched humanitarian system, says Oxfam

2013 is turning out to be a year of upheaval for the Philippines.

Super typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms in the country’s history, has affected 905,353 families or 4 million people in 36 provinces and 748, 572 individuals are displaced according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) before noon today. These figures can still climb after more reports from the ground come in. Haiyan made landfall in Guiuan, Samar at 4:40 AM on 8 November and exited the Philippines earlier today.

According to Capt. John Andrews, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) in an interview with the ABS-CBN News Channel, 100 bodies are lying all over streets in Tacloban City, in the province of Leyte.

According to the NDRRMC, there is no water supply and no electricity in different areas across the provinces of Samar, Leyte, Bohol and Capiz. Operations in 13 airports in these provinces have been suspended, with reports that some of the airports have been damaged.

Electric posts and trees have blocked roads, buildings have been wrecked, and houses, especially those of light materials, have been partially damaged or destroyed. The province of Samar remains inaccessible. This has made knowing more about and thus being able to respond to the impact and scale of the disaster more difficult.

Haiyan is projected to cost the country billions of pesos in damages to properties, infrastructure and livelihoods. Haiyan comes on the heels of a devastating earthquake and a storm that wiped out rice harvests worth millions of pesos last October this year, and a deadly standoff between the military and rebel forces that left hundreds dead and thousands homeless in September. 

“These disasters compound the already difficult lives of poor people and threaten to entrench them in social inequality which they have been mired in for decades,” said Marie Madamba-Nuñez, spokesperson for Oxfam in the Philippines.

“With no assets, little savings and no steady incomes, the Philippines’ poorest people are small farmers and fishers whose livelihoods cannot withstand a disaster,” she said.

“Economic solutions to root out poverty and inequality must be paired with minimising the risk of poor communities to the vagaries of weather and climate change,” she said

Haiyan’s path crossed mostly agricultural communities in Eastern Visayas, where one in every three persons is considered poor. 

According to the government’s Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, Eastern Visayas is primarily an agricultural region with approximately 31% or 723,048 hectares of its total land area considered agricultural land. Agriculture, fisheries, and the forestry sector contributed 20.5% to the region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs 19% of the region’s total population in 2011. East-Your data has been truncated. ENDS…..

Note for Editors

To talk to an Oxfam spokesperson or to know more information, please contact Glenn Maboloc, Interim Media Support at +63916-2128567.