Supertyphoon survivors get ready for new nightmare
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People in central Philippines stock up as Typhoon Ruby barrels their way
Villagers began fleeing their coastal homes and started panic-buying in grocery stores and gas stations in central Philippines yesterday as an approaching powerful storm brought back nightmares of last year’s deadly onslaught from Supertyphoon Haiyan.
Forecasters said Typhoon “Ruby”, which was packing sustained winds of 195 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 230kmph, may hit the Eastern Samar province tomorrow and barrel along the same route where Haiyan levelled villages and left more than 7,300 dead or missing in November last year.
Survivor Emily Sagales said many of her still-edgy neighbours in central Tacloban city, which was worst hit last year, have packed their clothes and fled to a sports stadium and safer homes of relatives. Long lines have formed at grocery stores and gas stations as residents stock up on basic goods, she said.
Sagales, who gave birth to a baby girl in a crowded makeshift clinic filled with the injured and the dying near the Tacloban airport in the aftermath of last year’s typhoon, said the approaching storm had triggered bad memories.
“The trauma has returned,” the 23-year-old Sagales said, adding that she began packing yesterday after officials in her village alerted everyone that they might have to move. “It’s worse now because I didn’t have a baby to worry about last year and I had not experienced how it was to be right in the middle of a big typhoon.”
Hotels in Tacloban reported that they were running out of rooms as wealthier families booked ahead for the weekend.
“The sun is still shining but people are obviously scared. Almost all our rooms have been booked,” said Roan Florendo of the Leyte Park hotel, which lies near San Pedro bay in Tacloban city but sits safely atop a hill.
As part of the preparations, President Benigno Aquino III’s government has put the military on full alert and civic workers have started preparing evacuation centres and transporting food packs to far-flung villages, which could be cut off by heavy rains.
Aquino yesterday led an emergency meeting of disaster-response agencies to check preparations and ordered authorities to take steps to prevent panic-buying and hoarding of basic goods.
Taking steps in advance
Some towns in Ruby’s predicted path said schools would be shut today. Officials also decided to move the venue of the Asia-Pacific Economic forum next week, which was to be attended by hundreds of diplomats from 21 economies, from Albay province, which could be lashed by the typhoon, to Manila, which forecasters say will likely be spared.
Meanwhile, the president has ordered his officials to make emergency preparations before the typhoon hits this weekend.
“Everything has to be accomplished before the typhoon arrives,” Aquino told a meeting of the national disaster-risk management council.
The typhoon, which is moving closer, will be the 18th cyclone to hit the Philippines this year and is expected to make landfall in the Eastern Visayas region on Saturday and sweep through central provinces before exiting on Monday.
