Ma held baby over her head as seawater entered house

SINCE Friday’s superstorm, more than 200 typhoon victims flown in from Tacloban City were treated at the Mactan Airbase Hospital.

One of them was Janine Amoguis, 23. Looking at her 1-year-old son, who was sniffling from a cold, she remembered wondering at one point if they would survive supertyphoon Yolanda.

“Hindi na namin kaya sa Tacloban. Puro patay yung nakikita namin at ang baho na doon,” she told Cebu Daily News.

(We couldn’t endure Tacloban. All we saw were dead people. The stench is bad.) A storm surge at dawn brought waves into their house in barangay San Jose last Nov. 8.

The mother held baby Ezekiel above her head when seawater suddenly entered the house at dawn.

To avoid drowning, Janine climbed the roof with other family members.

‘Yolanda’, which packed 250-kilometer winds when it made landfall in Guian Samar, is the world’s strongest storm this year, perhaps in all meteorological records, according to weather experts who tracked winds at over 300 kph just before the typhoon arrived.

Amoguis’ parents and other family members had moved to a cousin’s one-story house in the coastal area of barangay San Jose, thinking that it was safer and that “Yolanda” would hit Tacloban city Thursday night.

But there was no strong wind or rain showers that evening, she said.

At 5 a.m. of Friday, gusts and heavy rain came, surprising them all, including her parents, two siblings and a 1-year-old niece.

Seconds later, seawater entered the house and rose to chest level.

“Nung mas tumaas na ang tubig hindi na namin niyakap ang mga baby namin kundi tinaas na namin sila para hindi sila maabutan ng tubig” she said.

(When the water rose, I couldn’t embrace my baby. I had to hold him up high so the water wouldn’t reach him.)

Her sister Clarisse, 21, did the same with her one-month-old infant.

They all climbed to the roof, scared to be surrounded by nothing but iron metal pieces and wood.

“Hindi namin alam kung mabubuhay pa ba kami dahil sa nangyari,” she added. (We didn’t know if we would survive.)

It was four hours later before they could get down. The neighborhood was like an open cemetery.

“Ang daming patay nagkalat habang tumatagal mas lalong bumabaho,” she said. (There were many bodies scattered about. After some time, they started to smell.)

The family left with only the clothes on their back, wet and shaking in the cold.

Terence, her 26-year-old brother, immediately looked for food.

He said they didn’t go to evacuation centers because these were already full. They chose to stay put in the house under a portion of the damaged roof.

Terence, a public school teacher in Tacloban, described how he joined other people who ransacked Robinsons supermarket for food and clothes.

“Grabe, panic na ang mga tao. Sinigurado kong makakuha ng pagkain good for three days sa pamilya ko,” he said. /Correspondent Michelle Joy Padayhag