When will we be ready for a Disaster?

Philippines
December 18, 2011 11:06pm CST
I have made an earlier discussion about the calamity that struck the southern part of the Philippines. I was watching news updates and am angry with disbelief that our national government seems to have slept or partied over the weekend. The problem that these two provinces hard hit by typhoon Washi (Iligan and Cagayan De Oro) are body bags. To date the dead toll has climbed to near 600 bodies and local funeral parlors are no longer accepting the dead brought to their doorstep because they no longer have the means to take care of the cadavers. So, the cadavers are piled on the side of the road until family members come to claim them. The mayor of the city has already looked into placing the dead into a local mass grave but the families refused because of our Filipino tradition of "lamay" (wake). So aside from the basic needs such as food, water and clothing, the mayor is also asking extra help for embalmers and coffins. These are small towns in the province. Yes, it is a big number of people in terms of casualties, but it makes me think what if it struck a bigger city here in the Philippines? It's like a rerun scene from every disaster struck where the local and national government look helpless and panic stricken because they have no disaster plans. All the help that I am seeing in the news is that of our military because it is in Mindanao, so they are easily deployed. Our country is not a stranger to such super typhoons but when? When will I ever see that we are not like sitting ducks when disasters like these strike??
1 person likes this
5 responses
@mensab (4200)
• Philippines
19 Dec 11
we can only be prepared when we want to. in this case, the victims were informed of the typhoon. but they were not disturbed by the news and its coming wrath. so when the disaster struck, many people were sleeping and caught surprised. i weep in the scenes i see on tv. how could this happen. even japan was struck by disasters and they were also caught flatfooted. so stop blaming the government. it can only do so much.
@SIMPLYD (90717)
• Philippines
19 Dec 11
I agree with you mensab. The people themselves have their selves to blame. Yes, it was admitted that they were warned to evacuate. But because there was a precedent that they once evacuated but nothing happened to them, this time they turned a deaf ear to the warnings. It should have been that whenever there is a typhoon coming, those that are near the rivers should really evacuate, even if they haven't experienced flooding , ever. I just hope everyone will learn from this disaster. But then, how many like this have happened yet, some people can really be stubborn.
@deodavid (4147)
• Philippines
19 Dec 11
maybe we'll learn if a major city get's hit and some popular folks did not survive, because readiness is not that hard to learn if there is a news ahead let's just leave the place and then the mayor or whoever is in charge call the national government for funds and take care of the expenses. I think if only redtape, irresponsibleness and anticorrupt measures are in play here then we will be more prepared and have more tactics on dealing with our stubborn countrymen who don't wanna leave there homes. It is wrong to just let them die like that even if they refuse to evacuate but then again if the local government don't have the power or cash to use for police or military assistance to ward this people off there houses then hope is all lost. I just wish that our country gets fixed before we are all done for, because at the rate our country is going it is not the typhoons that will destroy us it is the people in power.
@rsa101 (40952)
• Philippines
19 Dec 11
It is a sad event that happened in Mindanao area. But as I was reflecting on what had happened I never really could not blame the government for inaction on this one since I think it is already given that local government should have done something about this a long time ago. Illegal logging and denudation of a lot of the mountain ranges have caused this massive flooding and all. But of course Government could only do something at this point in time. I think mother nature is becoming furious already that even Japan could not cope up with the massiveness of the damage caused by these events. We could witness even in other countries how badly they are hit by calamities. When can we be ready I guess we can never predict since no matter how ready we are when the calamity hitting us is beyond what we expected it to be then we will never be prepared I guess.
@cearn25 (3452)
• Philippines
19 Dec 11
We all know that Philippines is not knew to experience typhoons. But how come we don't learn lesson from what happened to the previous typhoons? Now it happened again.
@ardieboi (195)
• Philippines
19 Dec 11
We won't be ready for natural calamities in the near future. There are funds provided for times like these. Budgets which are supposed to be for disasters are pocketed by our politicians. Its a sad state our country is in. Good thing we have a president who is anti-corrupt.