EDMONTON – As the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan continues to unfold in the Philippines, an international aid effort is underway for those suffering through the devastation.
Here in the city Saturday morning, members of the Edmonton Filipino Seventh-day Adventist Church held a candlelight vigil to pray for those affected by the disaster. Donations were also collected to help in the relief efforts.
“Our friends and family members are suffering so much from this storm,” said Andy Magbago, a member of the church.
“There’s no means of livelihood, nothing. There’s no food. There’s no houses,” he said holding back tears. “No houses were standing.”
“It’s been emotional and it’s so burdening because lots of our family members… and friends are over there,” added Andy’s wife Lerma Magbago.
According to the latest figures by the Philippines’ main disaster agency, 3,633 people have died and 12,487 were injured. Many of the bodies remain tangled amongst piles of debris, or lining the road in body bags. Some are believed to have been swept out to sea.
There are reportedly 1,179 people still missing.
READ MORE: For Philippine typhoon survivors, search for missing loved ones is a hellish daily routine
“I just have never seen anything like this. I can say that it’s almost as if the city was scooped up and turned upside down. It’s that bad. There is nothing that hasn’t been touched,” said Edmontonian Pernille Ironside, a member of UNICEF’s immediate response team who has been deployed to the city of Tacloban, one of the hardest hit areas.
“The homes, the cars are overturned and halfway up the side of the wall. There’s fallen trees everywhere, power lines down. You couldn’t even imagine this in a movie, it’s that bad,” she explained over the phone Saturday morning.
“Everywhere you see there are people, families, who are just trying to find some space where they’re safe and they’re trying to find food and water. It’s a very, very desperate situation.”
Ironside arrived in the Philippines Friday morning. As a child protection specialist, she says finding adequate food, water and shelter are not the only concerns for those on the ground.
“As a result of the chaos, there’s always a risk that families are separated from one another,” she explained. “There are unaccompanied and separated children who then become vulnerable to all kinds of potential exploitation, abuse, even trafficking. So our number one priority from a child protection perspective right now is to make sure that we’re identifying any children who are not with their usual care people and ensuring that they have appropriate interim care.”
Edmontonian Rashad Chin is also packing his bags for the Philippines. Chin – the response coordinator for Canadian Medical Assistance Teams (CMAT) – is one of six Edmontonians who will be in the country for three weeks helping those who have survived the disaster.
“We try to be prepared for everything,” he said. “Because the hospitals are down in the area or maybe damaged, or there’s personnel that cannot attend work, who may have been actually injured or killed themselves in the disaster… just the regular health care needs of a country who are now trying to rebuild after a disaster need to be met.”
Chin also works as an emergency physician at the University of Alberta Hospital and says he’s been receiving an overwhelming amount of support.
“The support is huge,” he said. “My phone is going off every couple seconds with volunteer requests from health care professionals who want to deploy with us.”
As of Friday, the Canadian Red Cross had raised $9.3 million for relief efforts. And all the generousity is not going unnoticed.
“It’s overwhelming and it’s so touching that it’s actually people that we don’t even know. And it’s just, we’re so lucky to be loved by other people,” Lerma explained. “They are so devastated by this situation, but to know that somebody is there to help them, that would be a comfort to them.”
If you’d like to donate to the Canadian Red Cross, you can do so by calling 1-800-418-1111, stopping into a local office, visiting the Red Cross’s website, or texting redcross to 30333.
With files from Shannon Greer, Global News.
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