Clare Henney: Typhoon Yolanda

I can’t believe that one week after blogging about the effects of the earthquake that hit Cebu and Bohol that I am again posting an entry about another natural disaster that hit the Visayas region. Typhoon Yolanda (International Name: Haiyan), according to many news items I’ve read in these past few days, is the strongest storm to hit the world this year. The entire country braced itself for the worse and (unfortunately) Yolanda did show the power that was expected. While there have been many people spared because of the early preparations made for the typhoon, there were some areas where damage and death could not be avoided. If social media reports are accurate, more than 10,000 people have died. That is a shockingly big number. If any of you reading this have the resources to help, please do contact the Philippine Red Cross (@PhilRedCross) and send help or volunteer with repacking relief goods with the DSWD.

For those in search for their relatives, you can visit Google’s People Finder or fill up a form prepared by the Philippine Red Cross.

Here some important contact details prepared by the Inquirer in case anyone needs it to help:

Watching the news and seeing how so many places in Visayas were heavily damaged, I could not help but worry about my friend Raissa and her family who are from one of the areas affected, Tacloban. As of this entry, I have not heard from her. With communications down I wasn’t surprised but I tried anyway. I hope that I can hear from her soon and hope that her family is OK. It was heartbreaking to see what happened to Tacloban. I heard news of looting and other problems and I hope that the government can help to make sure that the people who survived are safe and are able to receive the much-needed help that they deserve. Like I said in my post from last week. Nothing lasts forever. Sometimes it takes tragedies like this to remind us of that. Of our mortality. Of how so many of the things that we fuss and bicker over is not really that important in the long run. This is all just so sad, but it does put a lot of things into perspective. Lesson learned — I just wish we could stop having life lessons like this, don’t you agree?