Health Risks, Fears Increase in Philippines After Typhoons
Since the most recent of a series of typhoons hit the Philippines, massive and widespread flooding and landslides have left around 800,000 people in need of help and more than 1,000 people dead or missing.
Wrecked hospitals and clinics in the storm-battered northeastern Philippines and unsafe drinking water are raising fears of a medical crisis after more than ten children died, health authorities warned Wednesday. Since the most recent of a series of typhoons hit the Philippines, massive and widespread flooding and landslides have left around 800,000 people in need of help and more than 1,000 people dead or missing.
“Flash floods have swept boulders and logs downstream with great force, devastating homes and infrastructure,” reported the UK-based Christian Aid, an agency of the churches in the UK and Ireland.
Christian Aid-supported organizations working in the region say conditions are making relief work difficult. Around 200,000 people in the worst affected areas in and around the towns of Infanta, Real and Nakar can only be reached by sea. “The journey by road to the capital, Manila, which normally takes a couple of hours is now impossible,” Christian Aid reported.
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Although some people are managing to reach safety in small boats, many are stranded by floodwaters or trapped by mud and debris. The agency reported that there is an urgent need for food, shelter, water and sanitation, as well as medical supplies to clean infected wounds and treat diarrhea—often a killer in disaster situations.
According to the UN Children's Fund UNICEF, more than ten children have died of diarrhea or dysentery in evacuation centers and health risks were growing due to lack of drinking water.
Reuters reported that both UNICEF and the World Health Organization have expressed concern for the health of those crowded into relief centers, pointing out that there was a huge risk from lack of potable water and there was a threat of malaria from stagnant water and the weather conditions.
"We have recorded more than ten (deaths), therefore there is a huge mortality risk due to the fact that there is not much drinking water," a spokesman for the UN Children's Fund in Geneva told Reuters.
There was limited access to drinking water and living conditions in some 348 evacuation centers "are extremely bad," the spokesman said.
Christian Aid, which works in over 60 of the world's most impoverished countries, has sent an assessment team to the area and is working with the Social Action Center of the Roman Catholic Prelature of Infanta, whose community-based disaster teams are already responding by distributing stocks of emergency supplies.
According to the agency, the Prelature is trucking food supplies to the town of Mauban, south of the worst affected areas, taking it by barge and distributing it from a pier just outside Infanta.
The Prelature estimates that 70,000 people have lost their houses, possessions and jobs and will need long-term help to rebuild their homes and livelihoods.
Further south in Bicol Province, where the typhoon has devastated fishing communities and brought down power lines, Christian Aid’s partner COPE is responding.
Meanwhile, Christian Aid is making £50,000 ($96,500 USD) available for immediate help and will plan further work as soon as more information becomes available.
