Since September 23, 2009, the Philippines has been experiencing weeks of destruction from floods, landslides, storms and typhoons.
“In the Philippines it’s normal to have storms and floods, but when the second flood hit, it caused a lot of damage,” said Alfredo Salmos a native of the Philippines.
According to reliefweb.int tropical storm Ketsana hit on September 23. It affected about 4,320,699 people across the Philippines. Also about 216,941 people were moved to evacuation centers, mostly located in Manila.
Typhoon Parma was the second typhoon within a week that hit the Philippines. Parma made the conditions caused by Ketsana even more unbearable for the locals. The dirty water of floods brought many diseases. According to reliefweb.net, the official death toll stands currently at 311. Among these deaths 238 were caused by landslides.
These storms were two of the worse the Philippines seen in recent years. Parma hit hard because it added to the immense damage already caused by Ketsana.
Parma also hit Manila, the capital of the Philippines, where evacuated people took refuge.
“Even the capital was underwater from the flood, which is bad because the people don’t have anything to depend on,” said junior Clarisse Concepcion who has family in the Philippines.
Evacuation centers were already shaky and semi-flooded, but Parma made it much worse. Many of these centers were destroyed, leaving more locals homeless, adding to the severity of the problem.
According to nytimes.com, the damages are costing the government 2 billion dollars. A substantial amount of this money counts towards crop and land damage, as well as infrastructure destruction. Other costs that the government has to fund are job losses and transportation.
The president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, is urging the U.N. and other countries to donate money and give aid to the Filipino people. The U.N said they will give at least 44 million dollars worth of aid, which as been pledged by the international community.
Students here also feel for those in the Philippines.
“I feel bad. I would like to help them and donate money,” said junior Raven Fakoya.
Many people originally evacuated to the capital Manila for safety. Now they can’t even depend on their largest city for help.
