Typhoon Haiyan: How (not) to commemorate a disaster

How do you commemorate a disaster that killed thousands, and raise some money for survivors? Not with a dance party, seems to be the answer ringing out from the Philippines.

A year ago, Typhoon Haiyan (known as Yolanda locally) left about 7,000 dead or missing, and millions homeless. A survivor organised a ‘dance party’ to be held tomorrow in Tacloban, the worst hit area, with the slogan: ‘Party like it never happened, remember because it did.’ The proceeds were meant to help set up educational scholarships.

But the announcement of the event brought protests that it was insensitive, to which the organisers bowed, cancelling it, and apologising to those who had ‘misinterpreted’ the reasons for holding it. They said it was meant to be a celebration of survival, and that they would go on selling a tee shirt reading: ‘not even the strongest typhoon could bend the strongest people.’

With gusts hitting nearly 200 miles an hour, some consider Haiyan the strongest storm ever to make landfall. President Aquino declared it a ‘national calamity’.

Forgotten cyclone hits Africa

While the eyes of the world have been on Typhoon Haiyan as it devastated the Philippines (see my blog of 12 Nov), a cyclone has killed at least 140 people in the Somali region of Puntland. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed, and livestock has perished by the thousand.

The authorities say many people are still missing, and fear the death toll could reach 300. Heavy flooding has made many of the region’s dirt roads impassable, making it hard to get supplies to stricken communities.

Makeshift shelters have been built to accommodate people driven from their homes, while the government has appealed to international aid agencies to help. The Somali government has pledged $1 million.

Puntland declared itself an autonomous state in 1998 in an attempt to escape the clan warfare that has disfigured so much of Somalia, but the region has not escaped armed conflict and has been used by pirates as a base for attacks on international shipping.

·        * Another Spanish review of my book Historia mundial de los desastres http://lecturaserrantes.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Withington%20%C2%B7John

A deadly storm and a deadly anniversary

The strongest storms are not always the deadliest. It all depends where they strike. But Typhoon Haiyan has proved both strong and deadly. It has brought winds gusting at up to 170 miles an hour, and it has killed an estimated 10,000 people.

The worst hit area appears to be city of Tacloban on Leyte island in the Philippines, and the worst damage seems to have been done by the 45 foot waves the storm generated. More than 670,000 people have been driven from their homes.

The airport at Tacloban was damaged, at first preventing aircraft arriving to deliver supplies and evacuate survivors, but now the Philippines air force is getting transport aircraft in and out. Hundreds of thousands of people did leave before the typhoon arrived, but many evacuation centres were unable to withstand the winds and storm surges.

The deadliest storm of all time was probably the cyclone that hit Bangladesh 43 years ago today, on the night of November 12, 1970. Its winds peaked at 115 miles an hour as it devastated the low-lying islands of the Bay of Bengal, killing up to a million people. For the full story see A Disastrous History of the World.