Philippines struggles with storm damage

By Mona Laczo
Oxfam, in Quezon

Lucky Me is the brand name of the packaged, instant noodle that Celia Huerto shows me.

Her family of seven gets only two packages of Lucky Me, two kg of rice and two cans of sardines every day as food aid from the local authorities.

Mudslides and flooding washed away homes and possessions

Celia and other residents of Quezon province first had to cope with Typhoon Mufia.

Then came Merbok - known as Violeta here- just a few days latter. Then it was the turn of Winnie, and lastly Nanmadol with winds up to 120km/h swept through taking with it homes, crops and killing family members.

The picture now? Roads washed out, mountain sides gone, houses filled with mud, bridges collapsed, thousands homeless, rice fields washed away, people waiting for food distribution, huge tree trunks scattered everywhere, possessions destroyed, lives lost.

The meagre food supply given to families such as Celia leaves thousands of people in this part of the Philippines feeling anything but lucky.

As we were waiting for the storm to blow itself out my daughter also went into labour Celia Huerto

While information on the communities affected is still being pieced together, the worst hit areas seem to be Real, Infanta, and General Nakar in Central Quezon where more than 100,000 people have been affected by the devastation that followed the four storms.

It is also in this area where the highest number of lives were lost, with 400 confirmed dead and 300 still missing.

Thousands of homes were destroyed or damaged and large areas of farmland was washed away. As heavy rain continued for days, massive landslides due to soil erosion wiped out communication, roads and transportation.

"We have nothing left," said Celia, a mother of five. "Everything is destroyed. We didn't even manage to save our clothes," she said as she showed me a pile of clothes soaked in deep yellow mud.

"When Winnie came through, my family tried to take shelter at the gas station. We were all very scared not knowing if we will survive. As we were waiting for the storm to blow itself out my daughter also went into labour, which made me even more scared knowing that getting a midwife will be next to impossible. It was under these conditions that I became a grandmother," she said, a worried look on her face.

Filled with mud

Tessie Jimon's story is similar. Her house was filled with mud too.

"My sons have been working for days now to clean the mud out of the house, but there is so much of it I don't even know when we will be able to move back home," Tessie said.

She lost a brother in the storm. The family is housed, along with hundreds others, in a converted school building that now serves as an evacuation centre.

"We need food, water and a little bit of help such as mats so that we can return to our own house. I will also need to find a new job as my employer also lost everything and now there is no work for me there," she said.

Approximately 50,000 people in Infanta and General Nakar need water and sanitation relief, along with materials such as plastic sheeting to improve the living conditions in the evacuation centres and homes damaged by the floods and landslides.

Soon farmers will need seed and fishermen will need nets, and other basic tools and materials so that people can rebuild their livelihoods.

Oxfam teams are now making their way to Real, Infanta and General Nakar. "At this stage we can already tell that our response will take at least six months," said Lilian Mecardo, Oxfam's Philippines Country Programme Manager.

"After which we will still need to ensure that communities who lost everything in these storms can recover their losses and rebuild their lives," she said.