Drenched and shaking, a woman pushes and shoves her way through the agitated crowd, holding a wailing baby over her head as she fights for a spot on a military plane out of Tacloban. “Please let me and my baby on the plane,” she cries out to armed soldiers, who are holding back thousands of survivors of Typhoon Haiyan trying to escape the devastated capital of Leyte province.
As the soldiers announce that only a few could board the flight, a sobbing woman nearby falls to her knees in despair. Many victims hoped that they could get out faster after limited commercial flights resumed Tuesday from the airport in Tacloban, a coastal city of 220,000 people.
For days, only military cargo planes carrying supplies and emergency workers were able to land in the tattered airport, which was turned into a command base for the massive relief operation. Unable to reach her family in Manila, one woman sent a message to relatives through radio station DZMM as she waited for a chance to board a plane out of the disaster zone.
“Papa is gone but we are alright. Don’t worry, I am already with our sister and we are getting out of Tacloban,” she said on the radio. A makeshift clinic was set up in the airport compound, with tents connected by wooden planks. The wounded and sick queued for assistance, four days after Haiyan triggered a storm surge that flattened the city and other towns.
On Monday, 21-year-old Emily Sagalis gave birth on a dirty board of plywood at the clinic to a baby girl whom she named after her missing mother Bea Joy. “She is a miracle,” she said. Haiyan was the strongest typhoon to ever hit the Philippines, and one of the strongest in the world, slamming into the country with winds of up to 315 kilometres per hour.
Towns were turned into wastelands of splintered wood, mangled steel rods and iron sheets from destroyed houses. At least 1,774 people have been confirmed killed, with thousands more feared dead. Authorities have begun to bury some of the dead in mass graves amid growing complaints of the overwhelming stench of decay.
In Tacloban alone, at least 250 bodies have been recovered and more were believed buried under rubble, Mayor Alfred Romualdez said. Outside the city, some survivors have fled to nearby provinces by boat, but not all could afford the high prices being charged by the boats’ operators. “We’re desperate to get out,” said Ditas Maestro, 42-year-old mother of three in Ormoc, another badly affected city in Leyte. “I don’t know what to feed my children anymore. But we have no money.”
Shocked survivors in nearby towns were reduced to tears as they recalled their ordeal and loss. “Josie is gone, please forgive me but we got separated,” a sobbing man told ANC Television of his wife, who died in the storm. “It’s been three days and her body is still there,” he said. “The waves were just too strong for me, and I also lost my child.” Another man tried to deliver some good news to relatives, but broke down in tears.
“Brother, Junalyn gave birth on Saturday,” he said. “But we have nothing to eat now and feed the baby. We’ve only been drinking water.” “To my father and sister, have pity on us here, send us any help,” he said through his tears.
Girlie Linao, "Thousands jostle for flight out of typhoon nightmare," Business recorder. 2013-11-13.Keywords: Social sciences , Social issues , Social needs , Social rights , Social problems , Social activities , Natural disasters , Typhoon nightmare , Typhoon Haiyan , Relief services , Tacloban