Sometimes, you just run out of words to explain why bad things happen. But what do you do when you’re asked to explain why so many people died due to the onslaught of Typhoon Yolanda? As of 8pm on Friday, Nov 22, the National Disaster Risk Reduction & Management Council (NDRRMC) put the Yolanda death toll at 5,209. The number is still expected to rise.
“During a press briefing on Friday, Nov 23, Presidential Communications Operations Office head Herminio Coloma Jr. revealed that President Noynoy Aquino ordered the investigation after he ‘noted the extraordinarily high number of casualties’ in Tacloban City, Tolosa, Tanauan, Palo, Dulag and other nearby areas in the wake of Typhoon Yolanda,” reports Kimberly Jane Tan on GMA News Online.
He had earlier corrected an official’s unofficial estimate of 10,000 casualties to, at most, 2,500.
Based on the overall statistics, the areas mentioned account for more than 90 percent of the total casualties. Aquino has tapped Department of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and Department of Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo to find out why so many people perished when their locations were hit by what has been referred to as “the strongest typhoon in the world in 2013.”
Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) had maximum sustained winds of 315 kilometers per hour or 195 miles per hour. Many Typhoon Yolanda survivors revealed that even the evacuation areas they ran to got wrecked when Yolanda hit.
So, will the president be satisfied if he’s told that a combination of unfortunate factors (coastal area, houses made of light materials, and crippled LGUs) caused so many people to lose their lives in the calamity?
And then what?
Photo by Jay Morales/Malacañang Photo Bureau (public domain)
