Sunday, November 10, 2013

Post from Leyte: 10,000 dead in Tacloban, Palo, Leyte and other towns

In a latest update, Yahoo PH reports that more than 10,000 are feared dead from Typhoon Yolanda. In many places, there is nothing to eat. There is no communication with a lot of survivors. All cell sites from Tacloban to nearly 95% of Leyte Province and nearby island provinces are dead too. Cebu and other unscathed island provinces, fortunately can reach others through remote communications but for Leyte and many affected islands like Biliran, everyone is cut off from the rest of the world unless there is contact by satellite phones or similar devices.

These people definitely need help, even international institutions like Yahoo are helping promote greater awareness. Local media is also doing its best to make the hard facts become known. But the best effort will be to reach the survivors and remedy the situation about the dead, otherwise rapid spread of epidemics is bound to follow.

This is a dire situation born of stupidity, but Vice President Jejomar Binay is adamant that there should be no pointing of fingers.

Earlier Yahoo PH reports that 1,200 are feared to be dead with evening news reports from Philippine media stating that bodies of the dead littered the streets in many places in Leyte Province. On the other hand, from the ground itself, hazmapping.com received reports saying that several thousand persons are dead in Tacloban City alone, with another thousand or probably more in Palo, Leyte , among many other towns in that province. Some photos from Palompon, Leyte are shown below:

Photo Gallery : Open sources images #Yolanda
Southern Leyte

Tacloban City

The Philippine Government needs to act very fast. Aid institutions must be able to provide a share. It is hoped that help comes very soon, as the numbers of the dead keep rising.

No comments:

The Distraction brought by fighting Climate Change

After the 2005 Hyogo Conference, scientists urged the United Nations to consider that the various conflicting issues surrounding Climate Change is "distracting governments" from providing solutions to threats of disasters worldwide.

"The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems."

A letter written to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon ventilated sentiments of scientists and technology experts on the issue of focusing deeper into finding means to adapt to the threat of climate change.

A network of connected hazards

The Global Geohazard System

Crisis Mapping

In 2008 we determined to create a full-function Crisis Mapping project. This was borne out of the persistent eruption of hostilities in Southern Philippines between both communist - Islamist groups on one side and. government on the other side. Fresh from the experience at confronting an incorrigible troublemaker such as the Juma'a Abu Sayyap, or more popularly known as Abu Sayyaf, we resolved to push stakeholders to join in formulating the Philippine conflicts crisis map.

This is modeled after the U.S.-Euro academe's successful crime and peace keeping mapping efforts that had led to wide acceptance and invited broad-based support from as many sectors and as many countries as possible.

After all, the value of life is such that people and institutions, states and combines will pay as high a price as possible for the safety of both individuals and enclaves of people.

Changed Parameters

One year later, the entire universe for the crisis mapping project had changed. It cannot be called a drastic change since the new directions fell within range of long-held advocacies and persistent efforts. We had began such efforts by provoking officials at the Department of National Defense to modernize.

Among the sources for concepts and ideas of our papers given to the department was an executive formerly engaged as part of a service provider group at a Saudi Arabia military base. The Saudi military and government, thanks to their foreign high-tech service providers in the late 80s were already advanced in the use of GIS, the digitization of all documents, exploiting satellite information among many things.

With various other inputs from visiting colleagues, the advocacy for a fully functional satellite research, GPS and GIS-ready system was pushed at defense department, the National Security Council and at the Department of Transportation and Communications through the suggestion of the administrative officer of the defense secretary. More > >

Environment Hazards. Crisis Mapping. Forecasting.

Pages

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Post from Leyte: 10,000 dead in Tacloban, Palo, Leyte and other towns

No comments:

Post a Comment