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The coronavirus pandemic is complicating the Philippines’ efforts to move hundreds of thousands of people to evacuation centers where social distancing is difficult to enforce as a strong typhoon lashes out at its eastern provinces.
Typhoon Vongfong, the first to hit the country this year, intensified after hitting the eastern Philippines on Thursday afternoon, with winds of 155 km (96 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 255 km / h (158 miles) per hour), the state climate office. he said in a bulletin.
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Provincial and municipal governments, many of which are already deprived of resources due to the outbreak, are dealing with logistical and spatial problems, with an estimated 200,000 people needing to be moved from their homes in coastal and mountain areas due to fear of flooding. and landslides. .
“This is really a nightmare for us here,” Ben Evardone, governor of the province of Eastern Samar, told CNN the Philippines. “Our problem now is where to squeeze our people, while making sure they practice social distancing.”
With an average of 20 typhoons each year in the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, the challenges facing thin local governments offer a grim preview of the disaster response at the time of COVID-19.
The Philippines braced for the typhoon while trying to combat the outbreak by largely locking up Filipinos in their homes and banning gatherings that can trigger infections.
More than 11,600 cases of COVID-19, including 790 deaths, have been reported in the country.
Citizens cut down a tree that fell on a road when Typhoon Vongfong makes landfall in Can-avid city, Eastern Samar province in the Philippines [EPA]
Overcrowding in emergency shelters is a common scene in the archipelago, which is generally hit by about 20 typhoons and storms a year, and regularly experiences volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
The typhoon is forecast to move northwest and hit Luzon, the country’s largest island that includes the capital Manila, which remains closed.
Images shared on social media showed that the powerful typhoon brought heavy rain and violent winds to areas along its path, knocking down trees, cutting power, and destroying homes.
In the city of Buhi, in the province of Camarines Sur, hundreds of evacuees received face masks before they were allowed to enter evacuation centers.
Mark Anthony Nazarrea, a public information officer in Buhi, said the local government turned two more schools into temporary shelters to allow for better social distancing.
‘Impossible’ social distancing
The only evacuation centers for 8,000 villagers in Jipapad, a city in the path of the typhoon, are a gymnasium and the town hall where residents could be protected from the typhoon.
Mayor Benjamin Ver, who is also the only doctor in the city, said he has secured enough face masks to protect his villagers from the virus at city hall.
Observing social distancing “is almost impossible” if all the villagers are crowded at the town hall, but Ver said he would see what else could be done.
Jipapad and all of eastern Samar, a province of half a million people, remained free of coronavirus infections unlike neighboring regions, provincial governor Ben Evardone said.
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All emergency shelters have been converted to quarantine facilities with medical equipment in the event of outbreaks, but they may have to be reorganized into evacuation centers if large numbers of people need shelter, Evardone told the Associated Press.
North Samar province governor Edwin Ongchuan said he has called for twice the usual number of school buildings to be converted into typhoon shelters to house some 80,000 residents who were forcefully evacuated from high-seaside villages risk.
“If we used 10 school buildings before, we now need 20 to accommodate evacuees with social distancing,” said Ongchuan.
The government meteorological agency warned that “along with large storm surges, this storm surge can cause life-threatening coastal flooding.” He added that sea travel could be dangerous in regions battered by Vongfong, a Vietnamese word for wasp.
