Botolan Flood Relief

Recent news from Botolan

A few disorganized notes from what Paz told me yesterday morning of her talk with Marites. Their need is still great and if you can use the ChipIn widget to send a few dollars their way it would be a help to them. Clicking on any of these small pictures will open a larger, clearer image of it.

Life continues to be a struggle. Getting back to the flooded houses to try to salvage more belongings is time consuming and exhausting. In normal times the two would be walking distance apart, or maybe a short hop on a tricycle, a sort of mini-taxi built around a motorcycle, most with dirty, noisy two-stroke engines. Now, though, the bridge they used is gone and getting to their devastated homes takes eight hours round trip. Going to Botolan town for shopping takes that long, too. This is Paz and Marites shopping in Botolan.

Nanay ("Mommy") is beginning to formulate a plan for her life going forward. Her old house was maybe 1700 square feet in two stories, with stuccoed cinder block walls that were unpainted outside but painted inside, and with a corrugated galvanized iron roof. It had electricity whenever the general area wasn't suffering a brownout, and in preparation for my visit in 2005 they installed an indoor bathroom for the first time, with a flush toilet and even a shower. That made it one of the more substantial homes around. It was the center of life for the extended family, and with a television and usually a little food in the frig it was a magnet for her many grandchildren. (She had 12 children, all of whom survived to adulthood, and in a country with no contraception except abstinence and few jobs to leave people exhausted at night...you get the picture.) That was a burden, sometimes. Besides the noise and occasional squabbles it was hard to feed that many. She lives on the widow's pension she gets because Tatay ("Daddy") was a career officer, a second lieutenant, in the army. It's 5000 pesos, about about $104.00, a month. She's thinking about building a smaller house in one of her fields on higher ground. It could be built largely of material salvaged from other buildings. She could more conveniently work in her garden growing vegetables and fruit. She wouldn't have electricity or indoor facilities, so her life would be quieter, too. For now she would just have an outhouse with a pit toilet, and maybe someday they could put in a septic system. It sounds rough, but she grew up that way and she'll manage.

Here is a picture of me, Paz, Nanay, Tatay, and a sulky Anna with a little friend in calmer times.

Paz's brother Jesse and his wife had, like Marites, begun a small store selling sundries like candy, soda pop, cigarettes and a few groceries. Everything was washed away.

Here are a few more pictures from our 2005 trip:

There are innumerable cousins, aunts, and uncles always around. These are some of them.

Here is another shot of the front of Nanay's house. The smaller one in front is where Paz's brother Merwin and his family lived. The flood water was halfway up to the ceiling there. Nanay is in the street in the foreground laying out a tarp on which she'll dry freshly harvested rice. On the right is the view from the back of Nanay's house in 2005 with rice growing. That field is flooded now and the rice that was growing this year is gone.

Three videos of the Botolan flood

This is not in English, of course, but the visuals are striking if you skip the first 1:18 or so.

This one is brief but shows the depth of the water.

One more...

Pictures from Botolan

Sent to me by Flor. Thanks!

News updates 8/12

Here are a few more links to news stories about the situation in Zambales.

SBMA rescuers continue assisting Botolan evacuees 

Other rescuers (besides the emergency response team of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority) who assisted in the evacuation were from the Philippine National Red Cross, Olongapo City Rescue Team, Philippine National Police, the Naval Education Training Command of the Philippine Navy, Philippine Army, and the Philippine Coast Guard-Subic Station. <p According to Mayor Yap, the flooding was caused by the overflow of the Baquilan and Balin-Baquero rivers that both drain from the Mt. Pinatubo area.

The overflow destroyed a five-kilometer length of the San Juan lahar dike, thus sending floodwaters to 10 barangays in the municipality, he added.

'Kiko' leaves 1,946 homeless in Zambales

While the RDCC is yet to estimate the damage in the province, Gov. Amor Deloso said that P205-million would be needed for the reconstruction of the dike and road destroyed during the typhoon.

“At least P175-million would be needed to fund the rehabilitation of the flood control dike alone,” Deloso said. (205,000,000 Phillipine pesos is about $4,270,000. We're getting used here to talking in trillions, so a billion here and another there doesn't seem so large any more, but in the Phillipines $4 million is still a lot of money.))

Typhoon turns motorway into a raging river From IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Typhoon Marakot hit the Philippines’ main island of Luzon on 5 August, displacing several thousands, it turned the motorway leading to one of its major towns into a raging river.

The Air Force rescued dozens of villagers stranded on rooftops as the water flowing down the main highway leading to Botolan, a town on Luzon’s west coast, washed away houses, vehicles and farm animals, officials and survivors said. Floodwaters also breached a dyke near Botolan. The coastal town has been declared in a “state of calamity”, said the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC).

Accounts of the typhoon’s damage are still pouring in as relief officials rush aid to more than 90,000 people affected by heavy flooding and landslides unleashed by the typhoon, which claimed 22 lives. 
(The nomenclature  used in the Phillipines for typhoons is different than that used elsewhere. "Kiko" in the Phillipines is the same storm system known more widely as Marakot.)

Addendum

I should add, by the way, that I have established a business checking account to keep any funds donated from being comingled with my household finances. Clicking on the ChipIn widget will take you to PayPal and anything you give there will go straight to the Philippines.

Update from Marites

We just got a text from Marites. She writes, "We're all safe, but all properties animal and farm are in calamaties. Water still on the high level in Nanay house. Many brgy (short for barangays) suffer from flood also in Botolan town."

Flood in Botolan--help needed

Botolan, Zambales, Philippines, the town my wife Paz grew up in, is underwater, and we need your help.

Thursday a dike weakened by Typhoon Kiko failed, releasing a flood of muddy water that quickly covered her baranagay (like a neighborhood or ward), San Juan, and several others in Botolan. According to one news article 

In Botolan, Zambales, more than 1,000 residents were marooned on their roofs on Thursday night after rainwater and mud from the slopes of Pinatubo breached a kilometer-long segment of the Bucao Dike, flooding at least 10 barangays. The floodwater rose to more than 5 feet (1.5 meters), forcing at least 1,000 families to flee to their roofs...By 3 p.m. Friday, 1,548 families had been taken to a gymnasium at the Botolan town proper, while at least 200 families were taken to elementary schools in Porac and Bucao.

So far the estimate of the number of people affected is 73,000 and and the death toll is up to 23. All of Paz's family are safe and dry, thank God, and in other family members' homes instead of shelters, but their loss has been devastating nevertheless.

This dike was built after the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which is just 10 or 20 miles up the road from Botolan, to divert the Bucao river after its course was altered by the eruption. The dike was built of only earth and rocks and was never reinforced with concrete so it seems to have been a disaster waiting to happen. When Kiko's water opened a 20 meter gap in it, Botolan was in trouble.

Paz's sister Marites says that when the flood came to my mother-in-law's house, Nanay didn't even have time to put sandals on her feet. Although she's in her mid-70's, she just ran out the door toward higher ground. 

Now Paz's bother Ariel, her nephew Ryan, and their families are in Marites' house. Her brothers Jesse and Merwin and their families are staying in Marites' store, which is smaller than my two car garage. Nanay is with Paz's sister Annalyn. These houses are not roomy to begin with, and each family has several children. They've been going back to their houses to try to retrieve any belongings that aren't ruined, too, hoping to keep them from looters, so conditions in the houses they've taken refuge in are very crowded. It's been difficult to make and keep cell phone connections, but the when we've talked to Marites, the noise in the background makes it seem chaotic.

Roads into the area are still blocked by high water, so relief will be slow to come. When it does come, it may be limited. The NDCC, the Philippines' National Disaster Coordinating Council does what it can, I suppose, but it doesn't have the funding it needs. After a flood  that affected over 100,000 people in another area earlier this summer, it looks like they spent about $300,000 to $400,000 on food and used clothing. The Zambales Red Cross chapter is said to be helping, but details are scarce.

Relief is certainly going to be needed, too. Nanay's house is actually one of the most solid in the area. It's two stories tall, made of cinder blocks with a galvanized steel roof. Some houses are wood frame, and a few are still made of nipa, lengths of bamboo stalks lashed together for the floor and walls, with a thatched roof. Still, they expect it to be necessary to abandon her house. 

What is even more worrisome is the lack of food. The sacks of rice they had stored away are ruined. The rice that was growing in the fields is destroyed. The cattle were found drowned. It's possible, at least, that some of the chickens may have flown up into trees and been safe. The pig should be all right, anyway. When they went back they found it still within its pen, but swimming around!

Since relief will probably be too little, too slow, outside help is needed. Paz and I have always helped them out as we could, but this is far beyond what we can do alone. That's why we would like to ask for your help.

There is a ChipIn widget next to this post. You can use that if you would like to contribute a few dollars to this effort. We would really appreciate it.

edit: This post has been reworked, mainly to make it shorter.