Tacloban’s top tourist attractions to reopen Sunday

MANILA, Philippines—Tacloban City’s most famous tourist draw, the Sto. Niño Shrine and Heritage Museum, will reopen Sunday, exactly a month after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” devastated the city along with the rest of Leyte and Samar.

Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) Commissioner Richard Amurao said reopening the Sto. Niño Shrine was their way of helping get Tacloban City back on its feet.

The reopening of the two-story palatial structure would be more of a symbolic gesture for now as Tacloban City, along with many cities and municipalities in the Eastern and Western Visayas regions, remains largely in ruin with widespread homelessness, debris and power blackout.

But the city is slowly returning to life with major roads cleared, fuel for vehicles and power generators, telecommunications signal and the resumption of commercial flights in the ruined airport.

The more than 2,000-square meter Sto. Niño Shrine located along Real Street was one of the few structures in the city that was least affected by arguably the strongest typhoon recorded in history.

While the flood brought by the six-meter high storm surge from the sea muddied the ground floor and the powerful winds shattered the glass windows and damaged the roof, the building was intact and the priceless treasures inside were relatively undamaged.

The shrine also escaped the looting rampage that swept the city days after the typhoon when the survivors were unable to await government relief.

The PCGG commended its personnel, who were also victims of the typhoon, for securing the shrine and cleaning it up.

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