Talisay, Philippines (AP) — When a storm hit his rural home, Reynaldo Dejocos told his wife and children to stay home and stay safe from possible lightning strikes, slippery roads or fever.
One thing the 36-year-old didn’t mention was landslides. In a town on the banks of the lake Talisay In the northeastern Philippines, its 40,000 residents have never experienced it in their entire lives.
But after leaving home last Thursday to inspect his fish cages at nearby Taal Lake, a torrent of mud, rocks and fallen trees tumbled down a steep ridge and buried about a dozen homes, including his own.
Talisay, located about 70 kilometers south of Manila, was one of several towns hit by the typhoon. tropical Storm Trami, The 11 most violent storms to hit the Philippines this year. The storm careened toward Vietnam through the South China Sea after leaving at least 152 dead and missing. More than 5.9 million people were in the storm’s path in the northern and central provinces.
Reynaldo Dejocos speaks next to the coffins of the family lost in the landslide caused by Tropical Storm Trami during their wake at a basketball court on Saturday, October 26, 2024, in Talisay, Batangas province, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favela)
“My wife was breastfeeding our two-month-old,” Dijokos told The Associated Press on Saturday at a local basketball gym, where the five white coffins of his entire family were laid out alongside dozens of other victims. “My children were holding each other on the bed when we found them.”
“I was calling the names of my wife and our children over and over again. Where are you? Where are you?”
Disasters and migration to danger zones are a deadly combination
This is the latest reality check for the Philippines, long considered one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, in an era of extreme climate change.
Lying between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea, the Philippine archipelago is seen as a gateway to about 20 typhoons and storms that blow across its 7,600 islands each year, some with devastating force. The country with a population of more than 110 million is also located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where there are many Volcanic eruptions Most earthquakes occur in the world.
The deadly combination of increasingly destructive weather blamed on climate change, and economic desperation that has forced people to live and work in previously off-limits disaster zones, has many communities across Southeast Asia waiting for disasters to strike. Villages have sprung up in mountainsides prone to landslides, on the slopes of active volcanoes, on earthquake fault lines, and on coastlines often inundated by tidal waves.
UN Assistant Secretary-General Kamal Kishore, who heads the UN Disaster Mitigation Agency, warned during a recent conference in the Philippines that disasters, including those caused by increasingly severe storms, threaten more people and could derail economic progress. In the region if governments do not act. Don’t invest more in disaster prevention.
A volcanic city bears the brunt of the disaster
The picturesque resort town of Talisay lies north of Taal, one of the country’s 24 most active volcanoes and located on an island in the middle of a lake. Fruit and vegetable farms have flourished on the fertile lands, which are also a major tourist destination.
Thousands of poor settlers like the Dijokos descended on Talisay over the decades, and its villages expanded inland away from the lake toward a 32-kilometre (20 mi) long ridge with an average elevation of 600 meters (2,000 ft).
Fernand Cosme, a 59-year-old village council member, told the Associated Press that the towering hills on the northern outskirts of Talisay never posed any major dangers, at least in his life. The main concern has always been the volcano, which has been turbulent and intermittent since the 16th century.
“Many are taking risks,” Cosme said of the villagers in Talisay, who have grown accustomed to Taal’s volatility and survived under it.
In 2020, the eruption of Taal Volcano displaced hundreds of thousands and sent clouds of ash all the way to Manila, closing the main international airport.
Kervin De Torres, a carpenter, wanted a safer community for his daughter, Keisha, a high school student, but he separated from his wife and she bought a house near the Talisay Mountain Range, where she lived with Keisha. His daughter was at home when the landslide buried her. The mother survived.
A distraught De Torres showed a photo of his daughter to police officers who searched Saturday for the last two missing people — Keisha and a child from another family.
Three hours later, an excavator dug up school uniforms hanging from plastic hangers, at the spot where Kesha is believed to have buried the debris.
Dozens of police and volunteers dug vigorously with shovels until a foot could be seen in the mud. De Torres cried as the little girl’s remains were placed in a black body bag. He nodded when asked if it was his daughter. Teary-eyed residents expressed their sympathy.
Doris Eschen, a 35-year-old mother, said she almost died when she was immersed in the waist-deep mudslide as she left her hut carrying her two daughters. She said she prayed hard and was able to move forward.
Standing next to her hut, which was half buried in mud as police and emergency personnel searched the area with bulldozers and sniffer dogs, Eshin worried about her family’s fate.
“If we move, where will we get the money to build a new house? Who is the employer that will provide us with jobs?” I asked. “If we can rebuild and survive, we will be living between a volcano and a crumbling mountain.”
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Associated Press journalists Aaron Favela and Vicente Gonzalez contributed to this report.
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