Residents walk on a road littered with debris after Super Typhoon Haiyan battered Tacloban city in central Philippines November 10, 2013. Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines province of Leyte, a senior police official said on Sunday, with coastal towns and the regional […]
South Africa sends condolences to Philippines after typhoon kills 10,000
At this early stage, the estimated death toll is hovering around the 10,000 mark. Those figures would rank Haiyan amongst the deadliest single weather events of its kind of the 21st century
Residents walk on a road littered with debris after Super Typhoon Haiyan battered Tacloban city in central Philippines November 10, 2013. Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines province of Leyte, a senior police official said on Sunday, with coastal towns and the regional […]
President Jacob Zuma has extended South Africa’s condolences to Philippine President Benigno Aquino. The island nation has been rocked by one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, named Super Typhoon Haiyan.
The storm struck the Philippines at the start of the weekend. At this early stage, the estimated death toll is hovering around the 10,000 mark. Those figures would rank Haiyan amongst the deadliest single weather events of the 21st century. For comparison, the nightmarish earthquake-tsunami-nuclear meltdown that confronted Japan in 2011 (and which produced the still-smouldering headache of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor) took 15,000 lives.
Zuma said yesterday, “During this time of pain and suffering, particularly in the case of those who have lost loved ones, please be assured that the government and people of South Africa share in your sorrow. We trust that the resilience of the people of the Philippines, that has seen them through very difficult times in the past, will help them overcome this great loss and devastation.”
Haiyan made landfall as the most powerful storm ever recorded in the region, but its fury is not yet spent. The super typhoon is now causing extreme distress across parts of Vietnam, while South African consular and embassy officials scramble to establish the whereabouts of any South Africans in the many popular tourist resorts affected.
The consequences of the Philippine storm on the broader South African economy may yet prove substantive. The Philippines is a major source of labour for the world maritime and shipping industry, and South Africa’s ports and harbours are no exception; the Rainbow Nation was in 2012 the largest source of remittances by Filipino workers on the African continent.
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