The death toll from the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year surpassed 200 on Monday, as desperate survivors pleaded for urgent supplies of drinking water and food.
The Philippine Red Cross reported “complete carnage” in coastal areas after Typhoon Rai left homes, hospitals and schools “ripped to shreds”.
The storm tore off roofs, uprooted trees, toppled concrete power poles, smashed wooden houses to pieces, wiped out crops and flooded villages — sparking comparisons to the damage caused by Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.
“Our situation is so desperate,” said Ferry Asuncion, a street vendor in the hard-hit seaside city of Surigao, which was devastated by the storm.
Residents urgently needed “drinking water and food”, he said.
At least 208 people were killed and 52 were missing in the latest disaster to hit the archipelago, with hundreds more injured after the storm-ravaged southern and central regions, the national police said.
More than 380,000 people fled their homes and beachfront resorts as Rai slammed into the country on Thursday as a super typhoon.
One of the hardest-hit islands was Bohol — known for its beaches, rolling “Chocolate Hills”, and tiny tarsier primates — where at least 94 people have died, provincial Governor Arthur Yap said on his official Facebook page.
Many wooden houses in the coastal town of Ubay were flattened and small fishing boats were destroyed on the island, where a state of calamity has been declared.
A senior official at the national disaster agency said he had not expected so many fatalities.
“I was proven wrong as it appears now coming from the reports,” said Casiano Monilla, deputy administrator for operations.
Rai hit the Philippines late in the typhoon season — most cyclones develop between July and October.
Scientists have long warned that typhoons are becoming more powerful and strengthening more rapidly as the world becomes warmer because of human-driven climate change.
The Philippines — ranked among the most vulnerable nations to the impacts of climate change — is hit by an average of 20 storms every year, which typically wipe out harvests, homes and infrastructure in already impoverished areas.
Typhoon Haiyan, called Yolanda in the Philippines, was at the time the strongest storm ever to have made landfall and leftover 7,300 people dead or missing. The death toll from Rai is not expected to get anywhere close to that number.
The Philippines has an established disaster management system that provides early warnings to residents of an approaching storm and moves vulnerable communities into evacuation centres before it hits.
But the storm has dealt a savage blow to the country´s tourism sector, which was already struggling to recover after Covid-19 restrictions decimated visitor numbers. —AFP
