Workers continue to find bodies in Tacloban

By: Marlon Ramos - 11 years ago

A typhoon survivor stands on rubbish in Tacloban, central Philippines on Dec. 8, 2013. AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The trail of death that Super Typhoon “Yolanda” left has continues to grow longer five months after the strongest typhoon on record leveled large areas of the Visayas region.

Seven more bodies were recovered in Tacloban City over the weekend as government workers scoured the area for victims of one of the most destructive typhoons to hit the country, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said Tuesday.

The council said the death toll from Yolanda now stood at exactly 6,300, most of them still unidentified. Property damage and losses were placed at nearly P89.6 billion.

It said 1,061 persons were still missing. A total of 28,689 persons were injured.

The typhoon affected a total of 3,424,593 families composed of 16,078,181 individuals in nine regions.

The NDRRMC said Yolanda, which triggered storm surges several meters high, displaced a total of 4,095,280 individuals as it knocked down 1,084,762 houses.

The agriculture sector bore the brunt of the typhoon’s wrath, with damage and losses placed at P21.8 billion.

The destruction wrought by Yolanda prompted President Aquino to create the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery and appointed former Sen. Panfilo Lacson to head the agency.

The government admitted that much had to be done to ensure the recovery of typhoon-ravaged communities, focusing first on the construction of temporary shelters for displaced residents.

The Aquino administration has earmarked billions of pesos in financial assistance to fund various rehabilitation projects.

Two weeks ago, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas led a whirlwind inspection of typhoon-stricken areas in Leyte and Capiz provinces as he distributed over P1 billion in financial aid to local government units.

Roxas disclosed that the government had set aside close to P4 billion under the Aquino administration’s Grassroots Participatory Budget Process for the towns slammed by the typhoon in Eastern and Western Visayas.