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PWRDF Responds to Tropical Storm Washi

December 20, 2011

By Simon Chambers

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PWRDF, as a member of the ACT Alliance, is responding to the destruction caused by Tropical Storm Washi in the Philippines.  ACT member organisations in the Philippines are assessing damage by the storm, which hit northern Mindanao.

Washi caught thousands of people unaware as they slept, as the course of the storm followed a more southerly trajectory than most tropical storms and typhoons in the Philippines.

“Heavy rainfall also coincided with high tide, so that the water couldn’t flow to the sea. Flood waters rose as high as the second floor of some houses and the rooftops of others at a time when people were asleep,” said Femia Baldeo, country director of ACT member Lutheran World Relief (LWR).

“The area that is not in the path of the typhoon is not well prepared. We last had a typhoon around 25 years ago.”

The Filipino government reported on December 19 that 508 people had been killed and an additional 468 were missing.

Yesterday LWR teams were in northern Mindanao at Surigao del Sur, assessing the damage and establishing the needs of survivors.

National and local government assistance was being supplemented by the World Food Programme and a variety of NGOs, who are providing food for 52,000 people across 18 evacuation centres, Baldeo said.

UNOCHA reported that 146,550 people were affected, a figure that is likely to rise as national authorities gather and consolidate additional information.

Over 400 families were days away from harvest at a LWR seaweed cultivation project at Surigao del Sur. “I was there on Wednesday and saw that people were really excited about harvesting, possibly this week, so that they would have money for the Christmas celebration. But everything was washed out to sea,” Baldeo said.

LWR plans to offer project beneficiaries cash to buy necessities, rather than distribute relief.

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines has advanced US $2,000 to a member church to respond to survivors’ immediate needs and will offer further emergency response as information about the disaster becomes available.

Irregular power supplies to much of the affected area are restricting the quantity of information coming from the region.

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For media requests please contact Communications Coordinator Janice Biehn at (416) 924-9199;366.

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