In Rolly’s Path

My heart goes out to these images. I couldn’t imagine how life could be that easy again.

How do you comfort someone who has lost his dwelling because of the typhoon?

Buried deep in lahar and rocks. Photos were culled from ANC.

How can one start all over again?

Look at that raging flow of mud.

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When Calamity Strikes

Even if you think you are prepared for such a calamity like an earthquake, you’re not. Even if you think that you are not afraid and are not nervous about it, you are.

Yesterday will go down history as another unfortunate event that all of us were unprepared for.  I was writing a post when all of a sudden, the table where my monitor and keyboard are started shaking. A lateral and downward movement that made one dizzy. Come to think of it, I never even thought of running outside but just prayed and prayed until everything is calm again. Jovy told me that they went down from their 22nd floor office at JP Morgan when an announcement told them to evacuate the building. They went back to work after all was clear. Josef was at the 9th floor of another building  near their JP Morgan office at BGC, waited for instructions from their Security office on what to do.

PHILVOCS  reported that it was tectonic in origin and the epicenter was somewhere in Zambales but it was in Porac, Pampanga where it was deeply felt. The two provinces are divided by mountains.

Above photo shows a damaged church in Porac,  Pampanga. There were cracks on the asphalted roads, a grocery store collapsed that caused three deaths and injured people. Portion of Clark International Airport was damaged too which led to flight cancellations in the area. Metro Manila was not spared. Most schools and public offices have no classes and no work today so those buildings could be inspected. More than 421 aftershocks were recorded by PHILVOCS  early this morning. Just watched a video where water from a swimming pool of a high-rise building poured to the grounds like falls.

And to think this is not yet the big one that they are warning us about. There are several fault lines in our country.

Marikina Fault Line – is the most geologically active fault line in the Philippines. – it is located in East of Metro Manila and cuts through all the modern and progressive portions of Manila, Rizal, Marikina City, Quezon City such as Eastwood, Rockwell, Ortigas Center, Bonifacio Global City, Ayala Center, and Alabang.  Bonifacio Global City and Ayala Center are the business hubs of Metro Manila. 

Earthquake drills are regularly being done but not all are willing participants. Poor us, we are flood-prone and earthquake-prone too.

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Typhoon Ompong

Had a shut-eye at 9 pm. Woke up at 11:30 pm to wait for Josef and Jovy to come home since they had overtime work. Had dinner around 12 am. Went to bed for a while then the rains came. And the alarming winds.

I didn’t anticipate this. These winds are definitely stronger than I imagined. We are only under typhoon signal no. 1. I worry about those kababayans in the north, some provinces are under typhoon signal no. 4.  I talked to my brother in Pangasinan last night and they didn’t have electricity.

I watched the news until around 4 am, when I woke up at 5:30 am, there was no cable. I forgot to buy batteries for my transistor radio. The internet is the only reliable source of news. Kudos to our weather bureau PAGASA which  updates us with the typhoon  every three hours and hourly news at their online site. This typhoon covers a wide range of provinces in the North and Central Luzon, it includes Metro Manila too. In the Visayas and some parts of Mindanao, they are having  monsoon rains at the moment.

Praying that this will end soon.

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Bye, Bye Glenda

And good riddance to you.

I know, I know it is not  such a problem if we would compare it to typhoon Yolanda a year ago. The typhoon survivors in those areas affected by it still have no homes to come back to. They have lost their livelihood to the devastating typhoon that was Yolanda. Typhoon Glenda wreaked havoc to power lines causing massive brownouts all over our country until now. I think I am guilty of this, finding discomfort without power for two straight days and just  relying on a transistor radio to get news. I have to get rid of some veggies stored in our ref, cook what was left in our freezer all at the same time so they won’t spoil, can’t check my e-mails because there was no internet. These are just minor problems compared to those who have just lost their homes to typhoon Glenda. Such a nice name for a typhoon but so deadly. I think of the devastation it caused us and  I just shake my head.  There is another tropical storm coming and anytime within the next few days, it will enter the Philippine area of responsibility. I am praying it would not make a landfall and won’t bring so much rain. You can never know with typhoons these days, one morning they are just ordinary low pressure areas and before you know it, they have evolved into strong typhoons. We are visited by more than twenty weather disturbances in a year and although it is inevitable, I still feel so much afraid and insecure every time there is a typhoon coming. Lost lives can never be replaced and destroyed properties are hard to replace.

My garden is a mess.

My poor Gardenia shrub. It was partly uprooted during the typhoon and my flowering orchids got the brunt of  Glenda. It is a wonder though that my Hoya orchids are again showing off lovely buds of pink almost in all tips of the hanging plants. Right after the winds and the rains stopped, Josef and I cleaned the yard of debris – fallen leaves from a neighbor’s mango tree, upturned flower pots, small branches of trees that I cannot identify, and some plastic wrappers blown by the strong winds. Our small pond still needs cleaning. What a mess! I remember the time when we still had our avocado tree and around the months of July and August, some fruits are ready for harvesting. Just imagine gathering a sackful of avocados right after a storm.

I am saddened by what happened to the Malaysian Airline flight MH-17 and the deaths of all 298 aboard the aircraft.  Where is this world coming to? I was talking to my brother earlier today  on Viber and I told him, “we are not safe on land but it is even more dangerous when you’re out there because you have no way of defending yourself to such disasters”. “So true”, he said. When you’re on land, you can run or hide or do something to save your life. And I remember what I read on the news about VP Joe Biden saying, It was “not an accident, it was blown out of the sky.”  Who is responsible for this? Let us all pray for the  innocent victims and the families they left behind, that they find justice amidst this terrible tragedy.

Can life just be reduced to something like this?

 

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Praying With You Iligan and Cagayan de Oro

My heart goes out to those victims of typhoon Sendong. They say that death comes like a theft in the night.  Most of the victims who died were sleeping.  Some were confident that the typhoon was not that strong despite the constant warnings made by PAGASA but it brought heavy rains that even wiped out a whole barangay, toppled down cars and left many people dead and homeless.  They said that the areas affected were not usually under typhoons’  path and they never experienced flash floods before like this. Here is the latest update  on the typhoon.

I remember our own ordeal during  typhoon Ondoy more than two years ago, the worst flood that hit Metro Manila.  Unless you experienced the same thing and knew the feeling of being so helpless and weak , it’s never enough to say, “kawawa naman sila”. They need our moral support and prayers.  If we could not give material support, praying that they will not lose hope in this tragedy would be welcome. Let’s pray for strength for those whose families were lost in the flood. Let’s also pray that they would overcome this tragedy victorious  and never lose faith in a loving God.

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