Typhoon Hagupit / Ruby - (Weakened to Storm 8th Dec 2014)

Well it now over Catbalogan and Calbiga.

The wifes village has been wiped out!!! Only 3 building left standing apparently, the whole village came to our place and shelteredin our concrete house with no roof. Everyone is alive which is amazing. half of our present wood house has gone as has most of the brother and sisters that stay on the farm. Another brother, who's house is in the village itself proper says the water reached the ceiling upstairs in their place. i estimate the storm surge was about 4m. All bar 2 boats in the village have been lost. I honestly don't know what these people who live at a subsistance level or below will now do? I'm trying to find out the actual path the typhoon took but i've not seen anything newer than 12 hours ago.

Amazed by how much a few miles can make. The province was largely unaffect last year with slight wind damage but this one tracked futher north and went through Catbalogan / Calbiga so the the eye basically went straight over the top. I hoped that as we're on the west of Samar and on the south side of the bay we wouldn't be affect too much by storm surge but that obviously wasn't the case.

I'm now trying to figure out who to contact locally and red cross to raise awareness of the situation there. Obviously all villages will have been affect but where ours is there is no road in and access is only br foot or boat. I've now got an overwelming sinking feeling.

http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/western-pacific/2014/Super-Typhoon-Hagupit?

http://www.wunderground.com/wunderm...hur.cod=1&hur.fx=1&hur.obs=1&fire=0&ft=0&sl=0

Tacloban seems to have come through OK this time around.

The facebook page of Mayor Alfred Romualdez has some photos of the cleanup operation earlier today.

Thanks folks. Its amazing that everyone is alive. I'm just writing to the Red Cross to make them aware of the smaller villages in the Maqueda / Villareal bay area. Its amazing what a few miles can do. A weaker typhoon passing closer than last year has brought massive devistation

Just hope the aid services actually start to help outside of the mian towns and cities unlike last time. i hope they've learnt by their mistakes.

Thanks. Seen other tracks that show it tracking to the north west ish and on its approach suddenly veering west bringing it over samar. If it had just kept on it track then the main force of the typhoon would've missed. Oh well, wishful thinking.

That is very bad news subseastu. Having being flooded out in the UK last year I know how you must be feeling but the situation is far, far worse in a poor country where most people probably do not have insurance.

Sorry to hear this Stu.
It must be traumatic for your wife and the people of her village.
Hope they can fix things up quickly.

My wife's family to the south said it was not as bad as Haiyan for them but it was more slow moving this time.
Try to stay positive.

Before the Conservatives and Lib-Dems came to power, our Embassies around the world actually provided advice and assistance to their constituencies of Britons abroad. In fact most services were withdrawn just over a year ago when the Foreign Office's "Locate" computer system was scrapped. One used to be able to log-on to "Locate" via the local Embassy's web site and register as a Briton abroad. Within an hour or two of registering, one would have received either an email acknowledging the registration and providing the contact details for the local Warden(s). Wardens were mostly used to ensure the well-being and safety of Brits living locally, particularly in an emergency situation (war, pestilence, flood, that kind of thing and Wardens were usually long-term British residents. But the Warden system was scrapped at the same time as "Locate". No one at the Embassy knows who's in the country now and nor do they care.

The only source of information now is generated centrally by Foreign Office drones in London and is often incomplete and even factually-incorrect. Such is the case with a "news story" circulated by our marvellous government about its concern for the Philippines in light of the country being struck by a typhoon. It includes this sentence:

Do I need to explain why that is a lie?

Family are now re-building their houses as best they can. Now told that our entire roof on the old house was blown off!! Power expected to be back on in Catbalogan this week, in the provinces - god knows!!

Be interested to see what aid, if any they recieve

These pictures are from a woman in the Red Cross visting areas around the wifes province. One village is less than half a mile from the wifes family. A helicoter was seen close by yesterday. So it appears the charties are better prepared but that is obviously because they are already in place from last year. God knows what the govt are doing?

Wouldn't it be good if people could afford to build brick/stone buildings in the province, casualty figures would substantially fall when natural disasters occur like this.

It would Tim but its just not possible as we know as most live a subsistance lifestyle at best. The housing being built (in very small numbers) from last years typhoon range from concrete to plywood shacks that have probably been put together better than before in all honesty