Families anxiously seek missing amid ‘Yolanda’ devastation

Typhoon survivors hang signs from their necks as they queue up in the hopes of boarding a C-130 military transport plane Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013, in Tacloban, central Philippines. The typhoon, known as Haiyan elsewhere in Asia but called Yolanda in the Philippines, was likely the deadliest natural disaster to beset this poor Southeast Asian nation. AP FILE PHOTO

TACLOBAN—Marife Tabiola was playing with other children at a refuge in typhoon-ravaged Tacloban when her adoptive father walked in, having flown from Saudi Arabia after learning via Facebook she had survived the Philippines typhoon.

“Papa! Papa!” screamed the eight-year-old as she rushed into the wide open arms of Tenerio Tabiola, her only remaining family.

She had survived the huge storm surge the typhoon brought by clinging to the top of a tree.

The reunion came after a social worker who was looking after her began using one of the few operational Internet connections to comb Facebook for Marife’s father, looking for everyone using the name Tabiola.

Nora Maano eventually left a message on a page that had a picture of Marife, telling her father, who works in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, that the young girl was safe and well.

Father and daughter hugged each other tightly as teary-eyed workers looked on at the poignant reunion on, one of the small bright spots in a country grappling with the tragedy unleashed Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (intenational name: Haiyan) on November 8.

Tenerio Tabiola’s wife and other child died in the storm when 315 kilometer (196 mile) per hour winds whipped up tsunami-like waves that engulfed Tacloban, reducing the city to ruins.

More than a week after the storm barreled through the central Philippines, killing around 4,000 people, many still do not know whether their loved ones are alive or dead.

Officially, some 1,600 people are recorded as missing, but with communications still very poor and travel all but impossible for most survivors, many are anxious about relatives in far-off places.

Tacloban City Hall has become a focal point for those looking for the lost.

As of Monday afternoon, more than 400 people from the city alone were officially unaccounted for.

Photos of some of the missing are posted on a noticeboard near the entrance to the operations center at the compound.

Each has a message of desperation and a telephone number begging for information.

Among them is a picture of three-year-old Leona Macey Aguzar, wearing a pretty pink dress and with a school bag strapped on her back, looking like she hasn’t a care in the world.

By Monday, Leona had still not been found.

The noticeboard also has lists of the missing, with a contact number for each.

The bleakness of the sheets of paper, filled with names of people who have not been seen for more than a week, is punctuated by crossings out and the word “survivor” scrawled alongside a few names.

But most remain unchanged, a roll call of people who may never be found; their bodies perhaps sucked out to sea when the huge storm surge retreated.

Television and radio stations are airing details of the missing to spread the message, but without electricity in the typhoon zone, few people will be seeing or hearing their broadcasts.

Other survivors are relying on word-of-mouth, asking everyone if they know anything.

Jet Yangao, 23, told foreign journalists to look for her family in the badly-hit town of Guiuan on Samar island.

“I try to ask around, from anyone—friends, other relatives, just anyone,” she said.

Those who can, are making their way—painfully and slowly—to the disaster area.

Jim Pagatpat, a government clerk working in Manila, spent four days travelling over land and sea and sleeping in buses along the way to look for his 95-year-old mother on Samar island.

“The images being flashed on television really scared me,” said the 45-year-old native of Guiuan, a fishing town about 600 kilometers southeast of Manila.

His mother was alive, but her home was gone.

“The typhoon carried off the entire house. Not even a nail was left,” Pagatpat told AFP as he lined up for a place on a military plane back to Manila.

For many people in this poor part of a poor country, where so much has been destroyed, all they can do is hope.

In the coastal village of Manlurip that hope faded for many on Monday when recovery teams plucked at least 20 bodies from stagnant water.

But, like the story of Marife, there have been moments of joy among the despair, albeit few and far between.

Flordeliza Arpon, 32, said she and her eldest child got separated from her 35-year-old husband Sharon during the flood.

He clung to their two younger children, while Flordeliza and her 10-year-old were carried away by the waves.

“We found each other only four days later. I was resigned to their fate. I thought surely they died,” she said.

Then she saw her daughter queuing up for water.

“She did not recognize me at first. I tightly embraced her and cried for hours. She later took me to her father, who was watching over the youngest,” she said.

“We have lost everything,” she said, but “we are all still together”.

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