Posted on 11/10/2013 9:47:35 PM PST by Kartographer
‘My husband tied us together but still we got separated among the debris. I saw many people drowning, screaming and going under... I haven’t found my husband.’ Despite mass burials, the dead remain piled by roads and trapped under wreckage. Families clawing at the ruins to find survivors or food were overpowered by the reek of rotting bodies. Village councillor and father-of-four Edward Gualberto said he stepped on corpses as he took food from the remains of their homes. He added: ‘I am a decent person. But if you have not eaten in three days, you do shameful things to survive. We have no food, we need water. This typhoon has stripped us of our dignity, but I still have my family and I am grateful for that.’
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Prepper’s PING!!
Imagine how many would die if the temperature dropped below freezing for a week. That possibility won’t happen there but it could happen here.
It would be nice if SOMEBODY put the name of the country either in the headline or add it to the first paragraph.
I was thinking that this was about the tsunami of several years ago....
I said on another thread that when you have water on all sides of you, eventually that water is going where you are as water is just waiting to flow where it isn’t.
Living on an island is dangerous I don’t care how lovely it appears - the reality is you are stuck in an emergency and you aren’t getting any help until a plane or ship gets there and good luck living through other people trampling on you to get to the aid before you.
I also read the Philippines are in the direct path of the place where most typhoons are created. That makes them a very poor choice of where to live.
... and Washington State has volcanoes (and Wyoming has a supervolcano) and California has earthquakes and wildfires and Texas and points north have tornadoes and baseball-sized hail and Colorado has thousand-year floods, and ironically, severe droughts, and the Eastern Seaboard has hurricanes, and Chicago has Rahm Emmanuel and Buffalo, NY gets 20 feet of snow, then there’s the New Madrid fault in MO ... everywhere you go, there’s something. Pick your location, there’s a natural disaster app for that place.
The southern part, sure, but the northern part of the Philippines, not so much. Just heavy rains for the most part. The south really get it.
The TV stations in the PI are all reporting 55 people died. What the heck...
Are you saying the Philippines should be evacuated? Where should those 100 million people go? What country will take them?
“I was thinking that this was about the tsunami of several years ago....”
Of course, a tsunami and a typhoon, are two completely different things.
Unless the typhoon creates something resembling a tsunami.
Surely you’ve heard of “storm surge”.
I think they would have called a "storm surge" then. A tsunami has a very specific origin.
I've been through many strong hurricanes. The key to survival is safe shelter during the storm & a stock of food & water to last at lease a week. Anyone living near potential high water MUST evacuate. It's pretty clear from the pics & statements of survivors that they had neither shelter or supplies.
But, with 200mph sustained winds, there are few buildings in ANY city that are safe as a storm shelter. The pictures here show almost every building roofless, either completely destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Evacuation was the only safe bet, but how do you evacuate millions of people, & to what safe shelters do they evacuate?
I guess what puzzles me about all these deaths is that they knew several days in advance this killer storm was coming, they must have known from prior experience about the storm surge & deadly winds, yet apparently many people remained in flood prone areas.
For those who stubbornly refused to evacuate & died, well, they wont be a problem next time. For those who could not evacuate or had no safe place to go, I truly sympathize.
As for the Philippine government, they should have know what to expect. I hope they are well prepared, but I doubt it. Well prepared & government are mutually exclusive.
I hope the USA will give immediate, substantial aid to our long time friend & ally.
So how did a typhon (in the title) get confused with a tsunami?
It takes talent. All those Asian words look alike you know.
Missouri has the double whammy. In addition to the New Madrid Fault(a very active low level for now), we are living in tornado alley.
Of course, we are overdue for a big quake such as the 1812 time period, but most of my neighbors make no preps for such an event, and the contractors don’t do anything extra for the houses to survive such an event, except some of the newer commercial buildings in St. Louis.
Concrete bunkers built into hillsides, like the old abandoned military fortifications dotting the Pacific coastline of the USA, in Marin County, CA, etc.
Very sturdy storm doors and a strong sump pump would be advisable.
“...everywhere you go, there’s something. Pick your location, there’s a natural disaster app for that place.”
Your operative words are “Pick your location...”, as all risks (picks) are not equal. I’ve been on islands in Hawaii and Greece and you are stuck without help until a plane (not possible on the Greek islands unless it’s a helicopter), or ship gets there. If you are on a mainland you can go somewhere else which is not true on an island as you are limited to that island.
“Are you saying the Philippines should be evacuated? Where should those 100 million people go? What country will take them?”
It’s individual choice - live there if you want as some from this country choose to live there which to me is a poor choice since those islands are in the path where most typhoons, according to experts, are born.
People across the world go other places to live so those living on those islands with some amount of money, wouldn’t take a large amount, could go elsewhere if they want. Extremely poor people won’t/can’t leave those islands and they will continue to die when typhoons come there - that is a given across the world.
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