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Typhoon Haiyan kills 10,000 in Philippines

theguardian.com

21–30 of 153 posts

Re: Typhoon Haiyan kills 10,000 in Philippines

#21

Right now the important things needed are hospital ships, helicopters, medical supplies, drinking water, food and shelters... I feel so helpless donating just cash, so many lives need to be helped.

Drinking water is mostly solvable if there's an aircraft carrier nearby: http://blogs.wsj.com/dispatch/2010/01/16/aircraft-carrier-pu...

Getting it beyond the port is the hard part, but carriers have a few tools that might help with that.

Re: Typhoon Haiyan kills 10,000 in Philippines

#22
post #18

Right now the important things needed are hospital ships, helicopters, medical supplies, drinking water, food and shelters... I feel so helpless donating just cash, so many lives need to be helped.

Regarding 'just cash', I would like to quote the Red Cross: "The best way to help a disaster victim is through a financial donation to the Red Cross. Financial contributions allow the Red Cross to purchase exactly what is needed for the disaster relief operation. Monetary donations also enable the Red Cross to purchase relief supplies close to the disaster site which avoids delays and transportation costs in getting…

Do not freaking donate to the Red Cross.

Find a local charity.

The Red Cross is HORRIBLY inefficient and wasteful. Your money is buying them furniture.

Re: Typhoon Haiyan kills 10,000 in Philippines

#23
post #5

Wow, that's an insane death toll. To put this in perspective, last year, another super typhoon, Pablo, killed close to 2000 I believe. The year before that another devastating typhoon, Sendong, killed something like 1200. The Philippines regularly gets hit with 20 typhoons each year and the typhoon season isn't over. Each of the above mentioned typhoons hit in December. This has to be among the deadliest in Philippin…

I'm also in Dumaguete. gavhug at gmail com.

Re: Typhoon Haiyan kills 10,000 in Philippines

#24
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope they are better prepared next time, because there will definitely be another super storm typhoon like this. And I hope when they rebuild new structures in these coastal areas, they will be higher and stronger to withstand these things.

People there are always prepared, they know that it's typhoon season around this time of the year. But there's only so much preparation you can do with the money they have.

Plus they had an earthquake recently, so some of this was already weakened by that.

Re: Typhoon Haiyan kills 10,000 in Philippines

#25
post #23
post #5

Wow, that's an insane death toll. To put this in perspective, last year, another super typhoon, Pablo, killed close to 2000 I believe. The year before that another devastating typhoon, Sendong, killed something like 1200. The Philippines regularly gets hit with 20 typhoons each year and the typhoon season isn't over. Each of the above mentioned typhoons hit in December. This has to be among the deadliest in Philippin…

I'm also in Dumaguete. gavhug at gmail com.

Gavin? I have been in contact with you already. I didn't know you were still around though. Are you still doing the Ruby meetups?

Edit: Yep, that's you. I have you in my contacts list. I will send you another email. ;)

Edit Edit: And yes, for those of you reading this comment, this is an indication of how small the tech world here is, even in a decent sized city in the Philippines.

Re: Typhoon Haiyan kills 10,000 in Philippines

#26
post #5

Wow, that's an insane death toll. To put this in perspective, last year, another super typhoon, Pablo, killed close to 2000 I believe. The year before that another devastating typhoon, Sendong, killed something like 1200. The Philippines regularly gets hit with 20 typhoons each year and the typhoon season isn't over. Each of the above mentioned typhoons hit in December. This has to be among the deadliest in Philippin…

Considering how frequently this happens, there is something definitely wrong with the government's preparedness.

Re: Typhoon Haiyan kills 10,000 in Philippines

#27
post #17
post #2

I still don't get why the US Navy hasn't put an LHD or equivalent amphibious group into the relief effort -- it would be a great humanitarian thing, plus a show of strength for one of our key Pacific allies after the "pivot to Asia" -- a pretty clear implication that if we can put a battalion ashore to help hours after a hurricane, we can do similar things during a conflict. Extra points due to the huge number of USN…

It does not make sense for the government/Navy to have disaster relief ships on high alert (like the Marines are for example). The cost of maintaining that high alert status is high and the money would be much better spent nearly providing a lot more (but a little less timely) aid and support. I am sure the Navy will help, just maybe not today or tomorrow.

Right now the problem actually seems to be logistics. You can use the Marines as first responders -- what you need are helicopters and landing craft, fuel, power, comms, food, and water, which are exactly what a combat force uses in an assault as well. By downloading weapons, they could take extra supplies for civilians, and their own support.

The deterrence point of doing it instantly is that you can show just how fast and how hard an amphibious force can deploy. That's pretty much the only value of an amphibious force like the doctrinal mission of the Marines anymore; they'll never do an opposed amphibious landing with a long lead up, due to ATGMs/etc. being so effective.

One of the best things the US Military has ever done for our national security in the war on terror was helping out pretty substantially after the Kashmir 2005 earthquake -- there were helicopters in the air hours after it hit, from the US and UK forces in Afghanistan.

Re: Typhoon Haiyan kills 10,000 in Philippines

#28
post #5

Wow, that's an insane death toll. To put this in perspective, last year, another super typhoon, Pablo, killed close to 2000 I believe. The year before that another devastating typhoon, Sendong, killed something like 1200. The Philippines regularly gets hit with 20 typhoons each year and the typhoon season isn't over. Each of the above mentioned typhoons hit in December. This has to be among the deadliest in Philippin…

It seems like there are two separate things needed -- overall increase in wealth creation, and better survivability of structures (or at least shelters) at the current price points (or maybe in the price points somewhat above the current point.)

(I was looking at being in Cebu or Leyte for diving last week, but my ear was slightly sore so I went to Bangkok first instead. Pretty happy about that.)

Re: Typhoon Haiyan kills 10,000 in Philippines

#29
post #22
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding 'just cash', I would like to quote the Red Cross: "The best way to help a disaster victim is through a financial donation to the Red Cross. Financial contributions allow the Red Cross to purchase exactly what is needed for the disaster relief operation. Monetary donations also enable the Red Cross to purchase relief supplies close to the disaster site which avoids delays and transportation costs in getting…

Do not freaking donate to the Red Cross. Find a local charity. The Red Cross is HORRIBLY inefficient and wasteful. Your money is buying them furniture.

Firstly you can't throw claims like that around without a source, secondly I don't think now is the time to make FUD about which charity to donate to, thirdly that's tangential to what I was quoting (that cash is better than goods), and fourthly http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/10/typhoon-haiyan-...

edit: fifthly: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...

Re: Typhoon Haiyan kills 10,000 in Philippines

#30
My wife is in Vietnam and I've been worried for days about where the typhoon would go (South or North). Its silly but I'm relieved it's avoiding the South.

When I was telling her about the storm, I realized that people are that more exposed to natural disasters since they don't usually store food. At least in her surrounding, people buy food off the market everyday and don't have reserves, leaving them completely exposed to any disaster affecting food supplies.

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