The Guardian 13 December, 2006
Urgent appeal for cyclone victims
Cyclone Utor tore across the central Philippines on Sunday, leaving an unknown number of people dead or missing and forcing nearly 67,000 to evacuate. Just 10 days earlier the Philippines was hit by Super Cyclone Reming (international codename: Durian) which left more than 1000 people dead or missing, destroyed whole villages and damaged crops.
The mass evacuation was intended to avert any repeat of the devastation of Reming which unleashed massive mudslides in the eastern Bicol region. The villages of Albay took a heavy toll as people were swept out to sea or buried in the mudslides. Marinduque Island, Luzon and the Visayas are amongst other areas in need of considerable assistance.
Cries for food, water, temporary shelters and body bags were heard from all of Albay. In Legazpi City alone 17,000 families were left homeless. A number of barangays in Daraga, Santo Domingo, and Legazpi in Albay Province were immediately buried under tons of rocks and ashes that rushed down from Mayon’s slopes.
But the most appalling sight is right along the highway facing Mayon volcano as previously vibrant communities now lie buried in mud with some not even their rooftops showing. Survivors look dazed and shocked as they look for dead family members among the corpse which lie in the basketball court and makeshift morgues. Trucks come and bring more dead — most of them still covered in mud and starting to smell.
There is hardly anything left after successive cyclone occurrences, the affected families will need all the help they can get in order to survive each day and build their lives all over again.
"You should see the heart rending footages on national TV of the twice victimised peasants (no land to till and now no homes and many of their relatives buried in mudflow): an OCW (overseas contract worker) comes home happily bringing dollars (he shows a thick wad of US dollars) to surprise his family but only to see his former house, now buried along with his wife and four kids. He bites his lips and tries not to cry. Later, he bites his jacket real hard and then sobs", writes Edwin Subijano in an appeal for assistance from Migrante-Australia.
"A nine-year-old boy hugs his four-year-old sister and his tears flow. He cries for his parents and other siblings now gone.
"The strength of the rampaging flood and the powerful winds rented apart the earth below the houses. There is now a body of water in that place where there used to be houses."
Tragically, "the Philippine government failed to warn the people that mudflows had gathered at the gullies of the volcano. When the incessant rains fell, eight villages were immediately buried in mud along with a thousand people, mostly peasants", Mr Subijano reports.
Reming was the third super cyclone within a year, following on from Milenyo and Paeng. The Department of Science and Technology said that it was the first time in Philippine history that three super cyclones wrought the country within a year. And now Utor is causing even more damage and chaos.
As rescue and retrieval operations continue there is an urgent need for food, clothing, shelter, kitchenware and sleeping materials. The cost of rebuilding houses, health and day care centres, planting crops and providing safe drinking water will be enormous.
Migrante-Australia (a community-based organisation of Filipinos and Filipino-Australians based in Sydney, NSW) is seeking your support for the victims in Albay.
The donations will be used to buy immediately food (rice, dried fish, mung beans, salt, sugar, etc), water (ground water can not be used because hundreds are buried and are unrecovered), some cash to start building simple huts for protection against the cold and the rain, etc.
Migrante-Australia will be sending money raised in Australia through the Citizens’ Disaster Response Center (CDRC) which it says has been providing services to victims of calamities in the Philippines for more than 20 years and has a very good track record in service delivery.
Make donations payable to:
Migrante Philippines-Australia
PO Box 1168
Strawberry Hills, NSW 2012
For more information: Jane Corpuz-Brock: ph 0410 453 459 or email to:
migrante_australia@yahoo.com