NEWS FROM
LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF
December 21, 2004
For more information contact contact Jeff Rasmussen at jrasmussen@lwr.org or 410-230-2715.
In this news release:
- Philippine Aftermath: the need for necessities.
PHILIPPINE AFTERMATH: THE NEED FOR NECESSITIES
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Baltimore, December 21, 2004 — At first glance, the roof appeared to have been ripped from a house and carried downstream in the typhoons and tropical storms that unleashed their fury in the northeastern region of the Philippines. The roof, a simple shingled structure lay slightly tilted, but amazingly undamaged to have been carried by torrents of water and winds that have claimed more than seven hundred people. Upon closer inspection, however, the realization sunk in: the roof was, in fact, still attached to the house…buried under nearly eight feet of mud and debris. “All around us, with our new perspective, we saw remnants of houses peering up from their graves,” comments Prahbat Failbus, Lutheran World Relief’s Regional Representative for Asia who recently assessed the devastation with LWR partner National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP). “Those houses that weren’t buried simply weren’t there,” he adds, “or they had been destroyed beyond recognition, except for the clearing that once defined the property.”
The amount of time and money and labor required to even begin the rebuilding is staggering to the point of being overwhelming for those who survived the storms. One couple, in a state of shock at having lost their home and everything in it, literally could not verbalize what they thought should be the first thing they need to do to go on.
Other challenges are more immediate. While the government has relocated people to nearby evacuation sites – an area admittedly too small for the number of people it now houses – only children are able to sleep inside. Not only do adults spend their nights outside, but because most have lost all of their cooking utensils, a daily struggle exists to prepare the dry rations they receive from relief organizations. So begins the ordeal of waiting not only for food, but for the borrowed means to prepare it.
The government has suggested alternate locations, but many families are hesitant to relocate further away from their villages – where many were born or own land. To add to the problem, the typhoon, and the resulting relief efforts, was followed by three tropical storms – halting those efforts and further devastating the area.
Lutheran World Relief continues to respond in the wake of these storms, working with partners on the ground to provide food, potable water, sleeping mats, plastic sheets and light blankets. Because the need is immediate, gifts of cash are the most cost-effective way to support LWR’s relief efforts there.
