'We may have ratified our own doom.' Aftermath of Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda in Tacloban City, Philippines

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The photos above were uploaded on October 30 on her Facebook account by my friend Rhea Gladys Mae Sarigumba, a social worker who lives in Tacloban City. She is with one of her two daughters in the top right while her mother Mrs Vicenta Matildo is in the photo below with her to granddaughters, the children of Rhea and her husband Rogel who is pictured in the top right with his two daughters, his mother-in-law Vicenta and sister-in-law Lalai with her daughter Barbie.

Rhea with her husband Rogel and their daughters whose nicknames are 'Xycy' and 'Xie Ann'.

I've had no news about Rhea since Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda hit Tacloban City early on Friday morning, 8 November. One of the last entries by Rhea on the timeline of her Facebook is a link to an update on the approaching storm on the website of PAGASA, the national weather bureau in the Philippines issued at 6AM on 7 November, less than 24 hours before it hit the islands of Samar and Leyte in the Eastern Visayas. ('PAGASA' is an acronym but in the Visayan languages, spoken in the hardest-hit areas, it means 'hope'.)

Rhea's very last entry on Facebook, dated 7 November, was How can I sleep when 
all I hear is raindrops.. #kanta lang teh? (Just sing?)

Vicenta, Rhea's mother left Surigao del Norte in Mindanao, where she lives, for Tacloban City on Sunday but I haven't heard from her since. However,  a mutual friend and neighbour of Vicenta texted me this morning that Vicenta's mother and her sisters are all safe as they had evacuated before the storm hit.



This afternoon I received a text message from another Rhea, Sr Rhea Lei Tolibas TC, a young religious of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family who is based in the novitiate of the Sisters just north of Bacolod City. She's from Tanauan, Leyte, seen at the beginning of the video above, a coastal town about 45 minutes south of Tacloban City. Her family are safe and in an evacuation centre but lack food and water. Sr Rhea mentioned that people are desperate. 

Continue here.

Comments

  1. Melanie Jean Juneau4:13 pm, November 13, 2013

    thank-you for making this disaster more than mere statistics bygiving us faces, names and stories

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fr Seán Coyle7:48 pm, November 13, 2013

    A short while ago at 8:20am Thursday Philippine time I was able to talk to Reah Sarigumba. She and her family are all safe, thank God. They are in Palo, just south of Tacloban. Palo is the seat of the Archdiocese of Palo that includes Tacloban City.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lora Dolores9:59 pm, November 14, 2013

    So grateful for her safety! Prayers for all who have suffered in this tragedy.

    ReplyDelete

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