Typhoon Haiyan hits the Philippines, thousands dead

Luckily my family over there is okay, and all my wifes friends.

My one mate I went to school with lives in Cebu, which was really hit hard. He comes from a wealthy family so had no issues. His biggest problem was the lack of power.
 
Disaster experts warn on avoiding 2004 mistakes in Philippines

Disaster experts warned Monday that mistakes made in the relief effort after the catastrophic 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami must not be repeated with the super typhoon that has smashed the Philippines.

The humanitarian response to the tsunami, which left some 275,000 dead and wreaked havoc across Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand nine years ago, sparked heated debate about the size, form and deployment of assistance.

Some observers, including the British Red Cross, complained that the relief effort was hampered by rivalries between agencies, delivery of inappropriate aid and difficulty in managing the huge sums of money donated.

Others said much of the reconstruction funding that was promised was never actually distributed, while money was squandered due to corruption, mismanagement, and unnecessary duplication of aid efforts.

Survivors of super typhoon Haiyan -- which is feared to have have killed more than 10,000 people -- are growing increasingly desperate for aid and countries and organisations are scrambling to mobilise and donate.

But Martin Mulligan, chief investigator on an Australian research project conducted for AusAID on what could be learned from the post-tsunami recovery in Sri Lanka and southern India, said it was important to get it right this time.

"It is always the most vulnerable people who bear the brunt of such ferocious disasters and I'm not convinced that the disaster response 'industry' has learnt the lessons on how to rebuild devastated communities," he said.

"The immediate post-tsunami relief effort was impressive but many mistakes were made -- perhaps inevitably -- in the targeting of aid for long-term social recovery," he said.

"Aid organisations undoubtedly have more to learn from post-tsunami success stories about how to work within traumatised communities in order to ensure that aid funding is well targeted and effective."

Paul Arbon, director of the government-run Torrens Resilience Institute in South Australia that was set up to improve the capacity of organisations to respond to disasters, agreed more thought must be put into the relief effort.

"Foremost, it is important that we make donations with thought and care," he said.

"Typically, the well-meaning efforts of communities around the world result in an unmanageable influx of all kinds of goods into disaster zones and this creates a log jam in ports and airports that disables more targeted disaster relief."

Arbon added that "the most difficult phase of disaster relief will occur over the coming months and years when communities will struggle to find the support that they need as the world's attention moves on to the next disaster or crisis".

On the ground in the Philippines, aid workers on Monday said the scene was one of utter devastation with millions of people affected.

"The devastation is beyond comprehension. We urgently need funds to meet the basic needs of children and their families," said Save the Children chief executive Paul Ronalds, whose organisation has deployed rapid response teams to badly-hit Tacloban.

A humanitarian forum being held in Sydney this week, originally intended to look at the Syrian crisis, will now focus on the international response to the Philippines disaster with Australian Red Cross chief Robert Tickner Monday warning it will take years to rebuild.

"Whole communities smashed, horrific loss of life," he said, adding that anyone who wanted to help should make a cash donation rather than sending goods, which may not be what is immediately needed.

"It's better to buy locally and stimulate the local economy," he said.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mjs
Date : 11 Nov 2013 04:49
 
ghoti said:
It is a sign, and predicted. [-]Global warming[/-] Climate Change means more extreme weather. This is going to get worse and worse until we stop throwing so much carbon into the atmosphere.
Click to expand...

If you want people to take you seriously, please don't refer to it as "global warming" but as climate change.
 
Bizkit87 said:
If you want people to take you seriously, please don't refer to it as "global warming" but as climate change.
Click to expand...

Global warming is causing the climate change :)

More CO2 into our air, is trapping heat on our planet which is causing the globe to heat which is causing climate change :) Welcome to modern science. Anyone who does not understand that I dont take seriously :D
 
ghoti said:
Global warming is causing the climate change :)

More CO2 into our air, is trapping heat on our planet which is causing the globe to heat which is causing climate change :) Welcome to modern science. Anyone who does not understand that I dont take seriously :D
Click to expand...

Partly Correct, but the problem with calling it global warming, is the argument "but this winter has been colder than the previous ones", and global warming makes it sound like it's not a natural occurring event, whereas climate change has been happening for billions of years.
 
ghoti said:
Global warming is causing the climate change :)

More CO2 into our air, is trapping heat on our planet which is causing the globe to heat which is causing climate change :) Welcome to modern science. Anyone who does not understand that I dont take seriously :D
Click to expand...
How much do you think it contributes? If we double today's CO2, what do you think its effect on warming the planet will be? What do you think is the relationship between CO2 increase and temperature increase? Linear, logarithmic... something else?
 
Bizkit87 said:
Partly Correct
Click to expand...
No dude, its fully correct. Every word I said can be empirically verified.

but the problem with calling it global warming, is the argument "but this winter has been colder than the previous ones",
Click to expand...
In that statement I dont care if you dont understand that our planet heating is driving the extreme weather. But our planet is heating! This is empirical. Its global warming thats driving the extreme weather. The whole globe is warming.

nd global warming makes it sound like it's not a natural occurring event, whereas climate change has been happening for billions of years.
Click to expand...
"The scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming, and it is more than 90% certain that humans are causing most of it through activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

Dude..... just .... whatever...

"No scientific body of national or international standing maintains a formal opinion dissenting from any of these main points; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists,[10] which in 2007[11] updated its 1999 statement rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate with its current non-committal position.[12] "
 
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Sad loss, not much you can do against the power of nature!

Not so sure it's global warming and all that schit, just another cycle as we travel through space!

Killa calm down man ;)
 
Seriously said:
Sad loss, not much you can do against the power of nature!

Not so sure it's global warming and all that schit, just another cycle as we travel through space!
Click to expand...

If you ever would like to test your hypothesis that its a natural cycle you should click on the bolded link.

ghoti said:
Found this great article on common lies / mistruths the climate change denialists use to in their argument. We see them here so often I thought I would share. Ill share 10 here, and link to the rest of the 119.

1.) "Its the Sun" (killadoob) - In the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been going in opposite directions
2.) “Climate’s changed before” (many forumites) - Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.
3.) “It’s cooling” (Arthur) - The last decade was the hotted on record.
4.) “Ice age predicted in the 70s” (Alan) - The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming.
5.) “Antarctica is gaining ice” (techne) - Satellites measure Antarctica is gaining sea ice but losing land ice at an accelerating rate which has implications for sea level rise.
6.) “Al Gore got it wrong” (any conservative) - Al Gore's film was "broadly accurate" according to an expert witness called when an attempt was made through the courts to prevent the film being shown in schools.
7.) “It’s just a natural cycle” (Pitbull) - Ancient natural cycles are irrelevant for attributing recent global warming to humans.
8.) “Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy” (Chris) - Several investigations have cleared the scientists of any wrong doing.
9.) “Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans” (Arthur) - Humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes.
10.) “The science isn’t settled” (multiple) - That human CO2 is causing global warming is known with high certainty & confirmed by observations.

There are 119 common mistruths and disinformation at this link: http://planetsave.com/2010/08/13/119-one-liners-to-respond-to-climate-science-myths/

People are ganna be loving me in this thread :D Information is important though.
Click to expand...

For the TL;DR version

[video=youtube;dGG7JGT4Fdo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGG7JGT4Fdo[/video]
 
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Whatever Ghoti. You believe what you believe I believe what I believe together with my tinfoil hat! I can also accumulate many links of the internet but you know what? Nothing we can do about it. As the sun grows larger the heat will increase over time. There are many other theories and wild guesses and as yet none of the scientists can conclusively prove what is the major cause. We are here for a very short time so not much we can do to influence nature apart from protecting it as far as possible. Global weather patterns changed for eons, and will carry on changing where land becomes deserts where before there were forests and sea overrun islands with some continents rising and others sinking. All these have a major influence on the global conditions, human plays a part but NOBODY can proclaim just what % that part is. As the sunspot peak cycles start slowing down the world will become cooler again and hopefully the core temperature will drop some but by doing so more extreme weather conditions may occur. Stop worrying about "The day after Tomorrow" and live your life to the fullest. It will be gone and over with sooner than later. Mine sooner I guess as I grow old and starting to feel the changes! ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_Global_Superstorm
 
Anybody trying to blame this storm or any "extreme weather "on AGW should be careful. The facts do not appear to be supportive:
Coverage of Extreme Events in the IPCC AR5.
Extreme weather

Ghoti, it is true that Antarctic see ice is increasing. This is simple to verify.
Yes, this does not imply that antarctic ice mass is increasing. There are reports of it decreasing, some reports of it increasing (see below), but there are big variations in measurements, so it is difficult to be conclusive about this issue.
From NASA: Mass Gains of the Antarctic Ice Sheet Exceed Losses
 
Pentagon orders aircraft carrier, ships to Philippines

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and other American ships to head to the typhoon-stricken Philippines, the Pentagon said Monday.

The carrier, which has 5,000 sailors and more than 80 aircraft aboard, is currently in Hong Kong for a port visit. The crew is being recalled early from shore leave and the ship is expected to be underway later this evening, the Pentagon said in a statement.

"In company with the carrier will be the cruisers USS Antietam and USS Cowpens and the destroyer USS Mustin. The supply ship USNS Charles Drew is already underway and will rendezvous with the group as they get closer," it said, noting the ships should be on station within 48-72 hours.

The USS Lassen, also a destroyer, got underway Sunday for the region.

On board the USS George Washington are sailors and "aircraft designed to perform various functions including disaster relief," including the Sea Combat Squadron 12 flying the MH-60S Seahawk helicopter; and the "Saberhawks" of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 77.

"As needed, these ships and aircraft will be able to provide humanitarian assistance, supplies, and medical care in support of the ongoing efforts led by the government and military of the Republic of the Philippines," the Pentagon said.

The United States said earlier Monday that it was providing $20 million in humanitarian aid as well as additional troops to help out in the Philippines after the devastating hit of Typhoon Haiyan.

The Defense Department is continuing to work closely with the Philippine government to determine what, if any, additional assets may be required, the Pentagon added.


Source : Sapa-AFP /lk
Date : 12 Nov 2013 01:41
 
Seriously said:
Whatever Ghoti. You believe what you believe I believe what I believe together with my tinfoil hat!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_Global_Superstorm
Click to expand...

Dude, I asked you simply to test your hypothesis. Its kinda odd you arent willing to do that... you didnt even read clear information from scientists that would have helped you create an informed opinion...

vGPKk4c.jpg


... and this is not about belief. It is about empirical evidence.

If it makes you feel any better, people like you have won. Big energy has won. Its too late to easily reverse the damage been done. So well done for been on the winning side. Your "beliefs" come at an amazing price, but Im sure you dont care.
 
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Deadly crush as Filipinos try to flee typhoon nightmare

Thousands of people jostled and begged for seats Wednesday on scarce flights out of a Philippine city demolished by a super typhoon, as authorities struggled to dispose of bodies and anger at the slow arrival of aid turned deadly.

Corpses putrefying in the humid heat compounded a growing health menace, after one of the strongest storms on record left thousands dead. But authorities were forced to call off one mass burial in the ruined city of Tacloban when gunshots were fired.

"We had finished digging the mass burial site. We had the truck loaded with bodies...but...there was some shooting....they could not proceed," Tacloban mayor Alfred Romualdez told AFP.

Adding to the grim body count, news emerged that eight people were crushed to death Tuesday when a huge crowd of survivors from Super Typhoon Haiyan rushed a government rice store.

"One wall of our warehouses collapsed and eight people were crushed and killed instantly," the National Food Authority's Rex Estoperez said of the incident in Alangalang town, 17 kilometres (10 miles) from Tacloban.

Five days after Haiyan ripped apart entire coastal communities, the situation in Leyte's provincial capital Tacloban was becoming ever more dire with essential supplies low and increasingly desperate survivors clamouring to leave.

"Everyone is panicking," Captain Emily Chang, a navy doctor, told AFP.

"They say there is no food, no water. They want to get of here," she added, saying doctors at the airport had run out of medicine, including antibiotics.

"We are examining everyone but there's little we can do until more medical supplies arrive."

The World Health Organization said there were significant injuries that needed to be dealt with, even as health professionals worked to prevent outbreaks of diseases caused by cramped living conditions and dirty drinking water.

It cautioned regular health needs also needed to be met, including the 12,000 babies expected to be born in the disaster zone this month.

The United Nations estimates 10,000 people may have died in Tacloban where five-metre (16-foot) waves flattened nearly everything in their path as they swept hundreds of metres across the low-lying land.

However, Philippine President Benigno Aquino said late Tuesday he believed that toll was "too much", adding that 2,500 "is the figure we're working on", despite the rapidly climbing toll and the bodies still littering the streets of Tacloban.

Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras admitted authorities had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of corpses.

"The reason the body recovery stopped is because we ran out of body bags," he said. "But we now have 4,000 bags. I am not saying the casualties are 4,000. We are making sure there is an oversupply."

At Tacloban airport, AFP journalists witnessed exhausted and famished survivors pushing and shoving each other to get on one of the few flights out of the city.

Philippines Airlines said it was laying on six a day, each with 75 seats.

"We have been here for three days and we still cannot get to fly out," said a frail Angeline Conchas, who was waiting for space on a plane with her seven-year-old daughter Rogiel Ann.

Her family were trapped on the second floor of their building as flood waters rose around them.

"We made it out, but now we may die from hunger."

The UN estimates more than 11.3 million people have been affected with 673,000 made homeless, since Haiyan smashed into the nation's central islands on Friday.

Overwhelmed and under-resourced rescue workers have been unable to provide food, water, medicines, shelter and other relief supplies to many survivors, and desperation has been building across the disaster zones.

The international relief effort is building momentum with many countries pledging help. The United States and Britain are sending warships carrying thousands of sailors to the Philippines, and US amphibious craft were also being deployed.

All were expected to arrive over the next few days. But for a shattered population already in dire straits, any delay is too long.

"People are desperate because they have nothing in Tacloban," Marco Boasso of the International Organization for Migration said.

Hundreds of soldiers and police were patrolling the streets and manning checkpoints in Tacloban to try to prevent pillaging and the government said roads were now passable throughout the area, raising hope that relief might finally reach those in need.

"All the roads and bridges except two bridges in Region 8 are already passable," said National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council chief Eduardo del Rosario. Region 8 includes Leyte and Samar, the two worst-hit provinces.

"All our necessary relief goods, they can go to Tacloban (by road)."

President Aquino has declared a "state of national calamity", allowing the government to impose price controls and quickly release emergency funds.

Aquino's figure of up to 2,500 deaths looked set to be easily surpassed. By early afternoon Wednesday the government said 2,275 people were known to have died and 80 were still missing.

International aid groups said they feared what was known now was just the tip of the iceberg.

"Obviously the situation in Tacloban is appalling but we are also very concerned about outlying islands," Patrick Fuller, Red Cross spokesman in the Asia-Pacific, told AFP.

"There are a lot of them and I think it will be days, if not weeks, before we have a clear picture.

"No one is in a position to give an accurate figure. In Tacloban bodies are lying by the side of roads but those are just the ones that are visible. If you look around at the amount of wreckage caused you can see that people might have been taken out by a tidal surge."

"It's too early but (the death toll) will definitely be in the thousands."


Source : Sapa-AFP /nsm
Date : 13 Nov 2013 13:50
 
US Aircraft carrier arrives in Philippines: Navy

The United States Navy said Thursday its aircraft carrier the USS George Washington had arrived in the Philippines to aid an emergency relief operation following Super Typhoon Haiyan.

It "will go to a position just off the eastern coast of Samar island in order to begin to assess the damage and provide logistical and emergency support to include medical and water supplies," the carrier's commander, Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, said.

The USS George Washington was one of eight American ships in the region as part of "Operation Damayan" -- Tagalog for "solidarity" -- Montgomery added in a statement emailed to journalists.

He said cruisers USS Antietam and USS Cowpen would join the carrier off stricken Samar while the cargo ship USNS Charles Drew was moving water supplies to Guiuan airfield, elsewhere on the central island.

Two ships were bringing emergency supplies to Tacloban, the devastated capital of Leyte province, while another was focusing on Ormoc, on Leyte island.

An eighth vessel was surveying conditions, Montgomery added.

"We have ships conducting a variety of missions," he said.

The carrier's arrival is expected to give the relief effort a much-needed boost, particularly as the US navy will bring its logistical know-how to bear on a chaotic situation that has left many without help almost a week after disaster struck.

Roads have been impassable and the aid that has arrived has been jammed at airports and in warehouses, its delivery complicated by a dicey security situation that has seen convoys attacked.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mm
Date : 14 Nov 2013 12:40
 
ghoti said:
If you ever would like to test your hypothesis that its a natural cycle you should click on the bolded link.

For the TL;DR version
Click to expand...
I think he meant the storm cannot be linked with global warming and for sure it can't.
 
Struggle to identify bodies

A week after one of the strongest typhoons ever tore through the Philippines, bodies still lie where they fell or were washed up, the defining motif of a tragedy that has killed thousands.

The stench of bloated and discoloured human flesh decomposing under the tropical sun hangs everywhere in the central city of Tacloban, where wretched survivors and rescue workers cover their mouths to keep the cloying smell from their throats.

Hundreds have been collected, put into body bags and trucked off to wrecked municipal buildings to await burial in mass graves, a process that city authorities began on Thursday.

Officials and aid volunteers say those bodies that have been recovered are just the beginning, a small fraction of those that could be seen when the storm surge subsided. Many more, they say, lie under the mountains of debris.

"Leaving them (the bodies) just decaying on the roadside, uncollected, is next to unforgivable," local Catholic priest Amadeo Alvero said.

Officials initially said picking up the bodies had to take second place to the effort to help those still living, many in utter destitution, their homes swept away and with precious little food or clean drinking water.

But they also conceded they had simply been overwhelmed by the number of dead, and had temporarily run out of body bags.

Echoing a fear expressed by many, Alvero said the dead could be the source of contagious disease.

"The government needs to act fast because this could also become a health issue," he said.

Health Secretary Enrique Ona insisted the bodies did not pose a serious risk. Experts point out that a corpse can only carry a disease such as cholera if the disease was present before the person died.

"We have to assure our countrymen that... there will not be an epidemic," he said. "The one thing we want is to identify them so we can give some peace to their relatives."

Identification is not always easy, for instance when whole families have died, leaving no-one around to ask.

Teams have been dispatched to Tacloban from the Justice Department's investigating arm and the national police's crime laboratory.

They know they will not identify every body they find straight away, but hope to collect enough evidence to allow that to be done later.

"On the scene, our doctors begin the documentation," said Chief Superintendent Liza Sabong, head of the national police crime laboratory and part of the contingent sent to Tacloban.

"We tag them as male or female, they photograph them, list the belongings on the cadaver itself. We do fingerprinting. We measure the body and then they are placed in cadaver bags."

This "processing" will allow any surviving relatives at a later date to identify the body, possibly through its clothes or appearance, she told AFP.

But the sheer scale of the task is overwhelming.

Only 13 of the 182 bodies collected by Sabong's group have been picked up by their relatives, she said. The rest have been left behind.

Tacloban on Thursday began mass burials of some of those bodies that had been bagged and laid out by the shattered city hall.

The plan, said mayor Alfred Romualdez, was that all those whose name and family were known would be placed into one huge pit. The unidentified rest would go into a separate mass grave.

Romualdez, who has been an outspoken critic of the rescue effort, said he believes three-quarters of all bodies collected had still not been claimed by family. In these circumstances, mass burials were the only option.

"Let's get the bodies out of the streets," he said. "They are creating an atmosphere of fear and depression."

The head of the Justice Department's forensics division, Wilfredo Tierra, said the collective burial was only intended as a stop-gap measure.

"They will be buried temporarily in a shallow, mass grave and when everything has settled down and the peace and order situation is not an issue anymore, then we will proceed with the proper disaster victim identification," he told AFP.


Source : Sapa-AFP /lk
Date : 15 Nov 2013 05:28
 
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