Over 120,000 people from the Philippine island of Mindanao have been affected by devastating flash floods due to a tropical storm on Saturday. URI's Pakigdait Cooperation Circle (CC) is in Illigan, one of the places badly hit by the floods.
Following is a report and appeal from URI Trustee and Pakigdait Director Musa Sanguila:
Greetings of Peace from Mindanao.
I know that many of you have read and seen the news on the recent devastation on the cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro. I cannot find words to describe the tragedy but what I cay say is we are badly hit by the typhoon. As of the moment there are almost a thousand lives has been lost. There are 486 missing as per record for Iligan and 500+ for Cagayan de Oro City. Most of them are children and women. The retrieval operations of bodies is still going on. I supposed all of us can visualize human and animal cadavers will look-like after 4 day search operation. The challenge now is how to identify them as well as how to resist the obnoxious smell. The forensics are doing their best to tag the bodies.
The most important at the moment are the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) or Evacuees. There are 10,301 families reported that were distributed to 6 evacuation centers in the city. They are badly in need of food, water, clothing, medicines, and kitchen utensils. The government is trying to cope-up the needs but it will not suffice to the bulk of IDPs. We need more help from other sectors in the society.
Pakigdait CC and the Interfaith Council in Lanao is accepting donations for the Victims of the the Flash Flood. You can send your donations to Pakigdait Interfaith Centre, 18 Narra Street, San Miguel Village, Palao, Iligan City. You can also send donations to the URI-SEAPac Regional Office, c/o Dr. Shakun Vaswani, URI-SEAPac Regional Coordinator. For more information on wire transfers and other ways to contribute to the relief effort, please email her at [email protected].
We will be distributing relief goods on December 26, 2011 in partnership with the Interfaith Council in Lanao. I have requested Dr. Moctar Matuan of Ranao Muslim-Christian Movement for Dialogue and Peace (RMCMDP CC) and Lanelio Sancoan of Higsabua CC to join us also.
In Peace,
Musa Sanguila
Director, Pakigdait Incorporated
