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The damage caused by super typhoon “Rai” (local name Odette) in the Philippines in mid-December is far greater than anticipated, according to UN figures. “We have found that we initially vastly underestimated the extent of the devastation,” the UN coordinator in the Southeast Asian country, Gustavo González, said Friday at an online press conference. According to the statement, not three, but nine million people have been affected by the consequences of the massive storm.
After the typhoon, several countries had announced relief funds for the affected region. So far, however, only 40 percent of the promised funds have been disbursed, González said. Given the extent of the damage, he said, much more was needed than the $107.2 million (94.5 million euros) that the UN had called on the international community to provide a week after the storm.
More than 1.5 million homes were destroyed or damaged by the typhoon, according to the report. The economies of entire regions, already weakened by the Corona crisis, were “literally razed to the ground,” González said. Some areas are still cut off from the power supply and communications network. This, in addition to the rampant omicron variant of the coronavirus and persistent rain, further complicates the work of aid workers.
Super Typhoon Rai hit the center and south of the Philippines in mid-December with winds of up to 195 kilometers per hour. More than 400 people were killed, and hundreds of thousands of people in the Southeast Asian country were left homeless.
- source: kleinezeitung.at/picture: Facebool Wall – Lilibeth Florendo
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