Typhoon Haiyan and disaster preparedness

Officials in the Philippines claim that around 3000 people have died from the impact of typhoon Haiyan and not 10,000 as previously estimated. Some islands and villages are yet to be reached therefore the death toll may increase. More bodies may also be found in the recovery process.

The question arises; will the true death toll ever be known? Just like the Boxing Day tsunami, the true figure may never be known. The most important issue now is to reach survivors in time. People have no food or drinking water and the situation is getting desperate. 8 people have been killed when caught up trying to loot a warehouse in search of food.

Looting after disasters like these is very common; however Authorities need to look beyond the misconception of the issue. Survivors of disasters do not always loot to cause harm. In Philippines case, looting is the only option they have left to survive and find food and water to get them through the day.

Although relief effort is underway, the worse effected areas are yet to receive aid due to the shear amount of damage done to infrastructure and communication. Relief agencies will need to reach these survivors over the next few days before the situation deteriorates and leads to more casualties. This is where just like earthquakes, the ‘window of opportunity’ is extremely important to save further lives within a short period of time.

A further question arises; was the country prepared? The Philippines is a country which suffers from a wide range of disasters from earthquakes, landslides, floods, volcanoes to typhoons. Haiyan was the twentieth typhoon of the season. So why has the impact been so extreme? For a country that should be well prepared for natural hazards, the lives lost and the destruction caused by Haiyan surely shows the opposite.

Typhoon Haiyan was no ordinary typhoon it lived up to its name ‘super typhoon’. Haiyan is the strongest typhoon/cyclone/hurricane to ever make landfall in recorded history. It struck the Philippines as a category 5 with wind speeds up to 314 km/h. Storm surge over 5 metres high were formed. A category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale is capable of catastrophic damage as witnessed. Surely no amount of preparedness could have prevented the damage and casualties for a storm that has gone down in history as being the strongest?

The death toll would have been far worse if the government in the Philippines did not prepare. Warnings were issued and thousands evacuated from vulnerable areas. For a country that was already suffering from the aftermath of a magnitude 7.1 earthquake, the government did what it could in the time it had to prepare.

It is easy to scrutinise the lack of preparedness in a country that should have learnt from past experience, however it should be remembered as frustrating as it is, priorities are different for every individual. Most of the population’s priority is to survive on day to day bases, leaving no time to think of hazards that are rare to them.

This is what makes disaster preparedness such a complex process. It takes more than just plans on paper to be prepared and resilient. The move from forcing preparedness on the population to incorporating development alongside disaster preparedness in order to benefit them is therefore greatly recognised and encouraged around the world today.  

In the meantime we can only hope that the Philippines recover from this catastrophic disaster and more importantly incorporate the lessons learnt for future disaster preparedness.