Philippine Typhoon is "Unprecedented Disaster"

© Erik de Castro/Reuters, Courtesy Trust.org

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) emergency coordinator in the Philippines Dr. Natasha Reyes describes the devastation brought by Typhoon Haiyan and what the medical needs are now. 

“Right now we’re operating in a relative black hole of information. We know from the very little we can see that the situation is terrible. But it’s what we don’t see that’s the most worrying. The reports we’re receiving from Tacloban are that the entire city of 400,000 people has been devastated. But there are hundreds of other towns and villages stretched over thousands of kilometers that were in the path of the typhoon and with which all communication has been cut. 

To be honest, no one knows what the situation is like in these more rural and remote places, and it’s going to be some time before we have a full picture. 

Unprecedented Disaster 

This sort of disaster is unprecedented in the Philippines. The effect is something like a massive earthquake followed by huge floods. 

...Our priority is to address the urgent and immediate medical needs, of which we are sure there are many. After that, really it’s everything – shelter, water, food. They’ve lost everything. 

At this early stage, the big issue for us is moving people and aid supplies to the affected area. Tacloban itself has limited capacity for flights, but we are doing our best to get our teams up and running. 

See the full story at the Doctors without Borders site.