The destruction and lasting effects of Typhoon Haiyan add to the chaotic whirlwind of continuing worldwide disasters.
Utter destruction: A woman surveys damage from the typhoon (Nov. 24, 2013).
Source: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
Looking up in the Philippines often means finding an expansive sky that seems to go on forever: picture-perfect clouds set against a stunning, deep-blue backdrop.
Yet lowering one’s gaze since the November 8 Super Typhoon Haiyan, also known as Yolanda, has revealed something utterly different: entire towns reduced to rubble, coconut tree forests flattened—a cacophony of destruction.
Meteorologists clocked the storm’s winds near 200 mph with gusts up to 235 mph, some of the strongest ever recorded. These numbers did somewhat diminish before the storm struck the central region of the Philippines, yet the power of the typhoon shocked residents used to living in the path of cyclones.
The mayor of Tacloban, a city of 200,000 directly in the storm’s path, told the Guardian what it was like: “I couldn’t see it coming because the wind was so strong. We just took cover. Glass shattered. People grabbed me and took me into a building but within 10 minutes the doors had blasted open and water was everywhere.” Regarding the sound of the wind, he stated, “Imagine you’re standing behind a jet engine that’s about to take off and all you hear is that roaring sound.”
When the storm passed, the chaos of the wind and water gave way to disorder and disarray of other sorts. Corpses hung from trees and littered the ground, more than four million were homeless, and devastated infrastructure slowed aid delivery to a painful crawl.
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Wiped out: A woman gathers water in the ruins of her home on the outskirts of Tanauan in Leyte, Philippines (Nov. 19, 2013).
Source: Chris McGrath/Getty Images
For those who survived, the turmoil hit on a visceral level. One gut-wrenching television interview featured a middle-aged man who, with an expression somewhere between grief and numb resignation, confirmed through a Tagalog translator that he had lost his mother, his wife, and all four of his children.
From the beginning, there was confusion about the death toll. Initial reports placed it at three victims, then four. A day or so later, a figure of 1,500 emerged. The nation’s government had one number, the United Nations another. Slowly, the body count climbed into multiple thousands. Due to the many small islands in the Philippines, however, the real number may never be known.
Hungry survivors began looting. Where aid did reach, a rice-line stampede killed eight people. Finally, the hardest hit areas began to receive food and supplies.
While the nation is now rebuilding, the chaos and lasting effects are far from over. The storm is estimated to have caused $15 billion in damages, yet the long-term economic costs are likely to be much higher. Citing Commodity Weather Group LLC, BBC reported that Haiyan destroyed half of the region’s sugar cane-growing area and a third of its rice-producing land.
Undoubtedly, Haiyan survivors will continue to feel its effects—especially the loss of loved ones—for years to come.
Fuel to the Fire
Filipinos are no strangers to weather upsets. A German newspaper article from Deutsche Wellelabeled their nation a “country prone to natural disasters.”
The paper stated: “The Philippines has suffered from an inexhaustible number of deadly typhoons, earthquakes, volcano eruptions and other natural disasters. This is due to its location along the Ring of Fire, or typhoon belt—a large Pacific Ocean region where many of Earth’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.
“Annually, approximately 80 typhoons develop above tropical waters, of which 19 enter the Philippine region and six to nine make landfall, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC).
“The Philippines is in fact the country most exposed to tropical storms in the world. Violent tropical storms, such as the latest Haiyan typhoon, can generate 10 times as much energy as the Hiroshima atomic bomb.”
Haiyan is the latest in the nation’s “inexhaustible number” of problems. When the typhoon made landfall, the Philippines was still recovering from a mid-October 7.2-magnitude earthquake in central Bohol province. After the temblor, 222 people were dead, 976 injured, and more than 330,000 displaced.
In response, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) drew up an action plan that sought “US$46.8 million to reach 344,300 people over a six-month period until April 2014.”
The UN agency reported: “Successive and simultaneous emergencies…have stretched the resources of humanitarian responders. Additional funding is urgently needed for timely aid to reach the right people.”
All this before Haiyan had even formed in the Pacific.
Yet other manmade problems have beset the nation—hunger, homelessness and violent clashes.
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Desperate: Villagers race to pick up food dropped by a Philippines Air Force helicopter near the town of Pastrana (Nov. 18, 2013).
Source: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
An example is the lingering conflict between the Philippine government and rebel groups such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The Thomas Reuters Foundation summarized the long, multilayered history of the situation: “The Mindanao conflict first flared in the 1960s when the Muslim minority—known as the Moros—launched an armed struggle for their ancestral homeland in the south.
“Mindanao also experiences violence linked to militant Islamist groups with pan-Asian aspirations, bloody ethnic vendettas, clan wars and banditry.
“Politics and religion aside, much of the violence is fuelled by deep poverty…”
In addition, the report added that a communist insurgency has been active for more than 40 years.
The foundation stated, “The presence of the army and so many armed factions often fans the fires of traditional family feuds, leading to clan-based violence on Mindanao. Both the army and rebel groups have been drawn on several occasions into clan confrontations, which have displaced thousands.”
Despite a 2012 peace deal between the government and the Moros, armed conflict continues. An example occurred in mid-September. According to The Economist, multiday “skirmishes began when the army and police opened fire to stop scores of rebels who were massing to enter the city. The security forces accused the rebels of using civilian hostages as human shields.”
In the end, insurgents “killed at least 12 people, some of them civilians; displaced thousands; and paralysed normal life for the city of [one million people].”
The aftermath of Haiyan has also seen rebel attacks, including from communists who ambushed an aid convoy destined for Typhoon survivors.
With widespread poverty, ethnic rivalries, clan violence, and insurgent groups, Haiyan has only added fuel to the country’s persistent problems.
Senseless Suffering?
When tallying the numbers—thousands dead, millions homeless, entire villages wiped off the map—the human toll can be overwhelming. Events such as Typhoon Haiyan make people stop and think, most often leading to a single question: Why?
Was it “Mother Nature” striking back at humanity? Was it simple time and chance? Where was God during this event?
Tragedies inevitably bring out the last question.
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Disaster area: An aerial shot shows the aftermath of the cyclone (Nov. 9, 2013).
Source: Raul Banias/AFP/Getty Images
In the days following Haiyan’s landfall, CNN’s “Belief Blog” asked what God’s role is in natural disasters. The post detailed the typical queries: “How should we make sense of such senseless death and destruction? Was God in the whirlwind itself, as the Bible hints, or present only in the aftermath, as people mobilize to provide food, water and shelter?”
Throughout the article, various religionists concluded that man asks these things “perhaps because the answers remain so elusive,” calling them “thorny theological issues” and stating that there is simply “no good answer.”
Yet there is an answer.
The purpose behind suffering is one of the most important topics for mankind. Real Truth Editor-in-Chief David C. Pack explored it in his Personal Why Must There Be Human Suffering? The article explains the underlying reason for suffering—backed by iron-clad proof from the Bible.
Survival Mode
While learning about such a tragedy from afar makes it easy to wax philosophical and then shift to the next news story, stop and think. Consider the plight of the Haiyan survivors and put yourself in their shoes. They are dealing with the aftereffects now—with little time to ponder the reason behind their suffering—and will most likely have to do so for some time to come.
Rachel Obordo summarized the resiliency and optimism of those in her home country in aGuardian article: “The Philippines is used to natural disasters and extreme hardship. After this latest tragedy we’ll come back fighting.”
Ms. Obordo described some of the nation’s hardships: “With 98 million people vying for space and resources, surviving is part of the daily struggle. However, with thousands dead and millions displaced from their homes, Typhoon Haiyan has left us more vulnerable than ever.”
She continued, stating that Typhoon Haiyan “is not enough to keep us down…those who have survived this terrible disaster they will stand up and come back fighting—although it may be difficult—with the resilience that has always shaped us.”
This resilience is quite remarkable and admirable. Despite chronic hardships, Filipino families endure, often with smiles on their faces. Other nations could learn a lot from their examples.
Global Trends
Simply pressing on, however, is becoming increasingly difficult—not just in the Philippines, but the world over. Natural disasters, famines, war and disease outbreaks are coming faster than ever, with no time to fully recover before the next chaotic wave hits.
Deutsche Welle wrote: “Since 2006 it has been rare for worldwide disasters to number under 900 in any given year. This is in stark contrast to the 1980s, when a terrible year might have seen a mere 500 disasters.”
How long can the world cope with a never-ending stream of overlapping mega-disasters?
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Hard to believe: Displaced residents walk along an area destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan (Nov. 23, 2013).
Source: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
Extreme weather is increasing across the globe. For example, Europe has been hit by a spate of powerful storms, with scientists predicting such weather upsets will be the new norm. Military conflict, such as the Syrian civil war, lingers with no end in sight. Rumblings of impending military strikes come from the Mideast, Asia and elsewhere. Old diseases such as bubonic plague and tuberculosis are back—and this time are antibiotic resistant.
The tumult of terrible events is both perplexing and distressing. How long can mankind cope?
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Heartbreaking: Two young boys stand among the devastation (Nov. 10, 2013).
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