Typhoon Haiyan: From The Eye Of The Storm

While World Vision launches a full-scale response effort in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, providing emergency aid including blankets, sleeping mats, mosquito nets, food and temporary shelters to 400,000 people, we acknowledge that our own staff and their families in the area have also been affected. With communications down, we’ve been unable to contact several of our colleagues whose homes were in the path of Typhoon Haiyan.

Mikhaela De Leon, a colleague from World Vision Philippines, hadn’t been heard from for the past few days since the storm hit. Today, we consider it an answer to prayer that she has made her way back to her home in Manila. This post is from her diary, providing a sense of the level of destruction of Typhoon Haiyan.

By Mikhaela De Leon, Media Officer, World Vision Philippines

I learned the smell of death. The stench of at least 1,000 dead bodies hung in the air as I took the longest and most depressing walk of my life. I will never forget that trip to the Tacloban Airport – it was noontime, and the air already humid and stale, a far cry from the billowing winds of two days prior.

A jeepney driver ahead told us to cover our noses as we passed for the air reeked of the dead.
“Where are the bodies?” I asked him, as I didn’t see any.

“There in the rubbles, buried in those collapsed houses. Hundreds of them,” he said.
I cringed. It didn't take long before I actually saw them.

In the streets lined up dead bodies - bloated and stiff, their bodies twisted in awkward poses. I had never once imagined myself seeing such a ghastly scene: human corpses and dead animals lying side by side along the highway as though on exhibit.

"Yan ang nangyayari sa matitigas ang ulo. Ayaw kasi mag-evacuate kahit sinabihan na." (They were stubborn. They were told to evacuate but they didn't listen.), I heard someone say.

I looked away. It felt disrespectful to stare. I walked on. I was only thinking one thing: home.

We can seldom imagine the painful emotions so many people in the Philippines are experiencing. Such a devastating natural disaster leaves families separated; homes and livelihoods destroyed and survivors feeling hopeless. With your support and donations, helping to feed, provide shelter and medical care, so much hope can be restored.

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