Philippines devastated by Typhoon Rai - Press Conference (23 December 2021)

The United Nations of Earth reporting on this issue: "Philippines devastated by Typhoon Rai - Press Conference (23 December 2021)"
The topics: After concluding a visit to the affected areas, the United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in the Philippines, Gustavo Gonzalez, today (23 Dec) said Typhoon Rai “has been devastating,” and noted that in the coming days, casualty figures will “certainly" increase. During his visit, Gonzalez said, he saw “roads covered with debris, electricity networks down, hundreds of houses without roof, and of course the impact on people.” He said, “you can see people along the border of the road between Butuan and Surigao asking, desperately asking for help. And they are asking for emergency shelter, drinking wate, food, and for their livelihoods.” The Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator noted that “contrary to the predictions, Rai intensified from a tropical storm to a super-typhoon within hours.” He said, “we were all surprised this typhoon took place in an unexpected area, it is not the traditional area where we have the trajectory of the typhoons, and the way it evolved in some way affected our anticipatory actions.” Three million people are in need of assistance, including “around one million children,” Gonzalez said, adding that “at least 177 people” have died, while 275 have been injured. 650,000 people remain displaced. He said, “we are confronted to a situation where we cannot access the islands, we cannot communicate with the local authorities. So, we are not surprised perhaps in the coming days the figures that we are using will change and certainly they will increase.” The official expressed concern about the interruption of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the affected area. He said, “the fact that there is no electricity, this is affecting the cold chains for the protection of the vaccines, and at the same time the labs, and in the evacuation, centre is quite difficult to ensure the respect of social distancing, the use of masks.” Typhoon Rai, known as Typhoon Odette in the Philippines, made landfall on 16 December with 195-kilometre-an-hour (121 miles per hour) sustained winds, and gusts of up to 270kph (168 mph) in the Philippine’s central island provinces.


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