More than 1,000 missing in Philippines after storm

[Lord Zentei]

I'm surprised that this hasn't been posted yet:

(CNN) -- More than 1,000 people are missing in the aftermath of a tropical storm that wreaked havoc across the southern Philippines last weekend, the country's government said Friday, as it grappled with the mounting humanitarian crisis in the region.

A total of 1,079 people remain unaccounted for, the Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said in a statement. Earlier in the week, the disaster council said it had lost count of the number of missing as it tried to assess the scale of the destruction.

The death toll from Tropical Storm Washi, which set off landslides and flash floods that swept away whole villages, has risen to 1,080, according to the council.

The United Nations said Wednesday that the storm has created "huge" humanitarian needs on the island of Mindanao, the scene of the worst devastation. It has made an appeal to raise $28 million to deal with the immediate problems in the area, with hundreds of thousands of people displaced in and around the port cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro.

"I was shocked by scale of destruction I saw," David Carden, the head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Philippines told CNN on Thursday after visiting the region. He said it looked as if an "inland tsunami had struck the area."

Around 675,000 people have been affected by the storm, the disaster council said Friday, with more than 300,000 of them being taken care of at evacuation centers at the moment.

President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines has declared a state of national calamity following the storm.

The disaster council said it estimated the cost of the damage caused by the storm at more than one billion Philippines pesos ($23 million).

Here's hoping that they'll keep finding people, though many will probably remain unaccounted for. The damage seems quite widespread too.

[Rabid]

Well, this isn't going to improve the living conditions of the Filipinos...

The cynical in me wonder how many dead, wounded and homeless could have been averted if people weren't forced to live in shantytowns and benefited from properly enforced building codes. My guts says : a lot.

[Serafina]

Well, this isn't going to improve the living conditions of the Filipinos...

The cynical in me wonder how many dead, wounded and homeless could have been averted if people weren't forced to live in shantytowns and benefited from properly enforced building codes. My guts says : a lot.

Your gut would be right then.
Because first-world countries are A LOT less vulnerable to natural disasters. Not because they occur less, but because their buildings are safer, their emergency services are better, they have more resources in case of disaster and rebuilding is usually faster.

If that same storm had hit Japan, for example, the damage would have been much less severe, the casualties would be lower and the disruption of public life and the economy would be shorter.

[Zinegata]

The area hit wasn't a shantytown. It was a provincial, rural area.

The emerging concensus is that building codes weren't the problem and had almost nothing to do with the disaster. The big problem is that the area got hit with record levels of rain and caused landslides that swept entire towns away. If anything man-made is to blame for the disaster, blame illegal logging, which has resulted in increased soil erosion and landslides in the past.

The good news is that - for once - the government disaster relief coffers are still intact and hadn't been used for other purposes (like say using the funds to support political campaigns or build houses for favored generals). It will take a while for money to reach the area due to its remote location, but help is coming.

Moreover, I'm gonna have to note that after Typhoon Ondoy, you will find very few people in the Philippines who do not believe in climate change. Unfortunately, there really isn't much we can do about it when most of the First World just doesn't give a damn or even outright denies climate change.

[madd0ct0r]

weeeelll, building codes also specify things like safety assessments of the area to be built in, not that it's stopped the UK dumping houses on floodplains.

Brief inspections of hillsides and slope stability (which should be part of the geotech survey before foundations) would give you a hint of the risk. A reasonably strong Building Inspectorate should be able to stop people building where they'd endanger themselves.
I'd also note when you get record levels of rainfall, you get unexpected shit happening. that's the same the world over.

As for the shanty town comments, let me tell you a story.

One of the engineering charities a while back did some open source design work for Vietnamese coastal communities. Basically, they designed a house using local materials to fit the common budget and plot.
Due to the frequent typhoons, there is a strong local tradition of offering shelter to family or neighbours should they need it.
They noted that initially, the families joining the scheme came under pressure from their family or friends to build the walls thinner and make the house bigger ect.
They also noted that after a year or too, the people who'd followed the design were it's biggest advocates as they were fed up of constantly having to shelter their idiot neighbours. As a result the design spread.

Shanty towns have their problems. Short term thinking can be one of them, but when a typhoon hits twice yearly, people do take it into account and prepare as far as they can. I know you said 'forced to live in shanty towns' and your anger is directed at slapdash authorities, but fundamentally the problem is poverty. Once people have enough to eat, then medium term risks start to look more significant. If you haven't got any resources to spare though, what the fuck can you do?