TACLOBAN, Philippines: Philippine survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan recalled their terror and loss while gathered Thursday at a mass grave for thousands killed five years ago in the country’s worst storm on record.
Then the strongest storm to ever hit land, Haiyan left more than 7,360 people dead or missing across the central Philippines with its tsunami-like storm surges wiping out communities and triggering a global humanitarian response.
In Tacloban, the worst-hit city, residents painted gravestones, laid flowers and lit candles at a cemetery in memory of the typhoon dead, shedding tears as they recounted how they themselves had survived.
“I felt like it was the end of the world. It was like I was in a washing machine, a whirlpool. I was so afraid,” Amelita Gerado, 49, told AFP, describing the giant wall of seawater that swamped her home.
“There is still pain, a scar, but we are recovering,” said the woman, whose brother-in-law was among those killed in Tacloban.
The city government has declared November 8 a “day of remembrance and gratitude” to mark the devastation wreaked by the 2013 typhoon, which highlighted how little-prepared the disaster-prone Southeast Asian nation was for disasters of that magnitude.
An average of 20 typhoons and storms lash the Philippines each year, killing hundreds of people and leaving millions in near-perpetual poverty.
But Haiyan remains the most powerful, with gusts exceeding 305 kilometers (190 miles) per hour at first landfall.
Storm surges higher than trees crashed into densely populated areas, leaving corpses strewn across streets and washing ships to shore.
Survivors and aid groups say rehabilitation has been slow, especially for the million families who lost their homes.
Of the target 205,128 permanent houses for those living in so-called danger zones, only 100,709 have been built, President Rodrigo Duterte’s government said.
“We are addressing issues that cause the delay, which include limited availability of titled lands for resettlement, slow processing and issuance of permits,” Duterte’s spokesman Salvador Panelo said on Wednesday.
Relocation sites built about an hour away from the low-lying coastal city also lacked a steady supply of electricity, drinking water, and jobs, authorities added.
For many whose relatives remain missing, the absence of their loved ones’ remains is also a lingering challenge.
In the Tacloban cemetery on Thursday, survivors wrote names on white crosses stuck on top of a mass grave as a way to find closure.
“We just put gravestones here even if we are not sure their bodies are here, just so we have somewhere to light candles. I want to honor their memory,” said Michael Ybanez, who lost his mother, sister, a nephew and a niece in the tragedy.
Philippines marks five years since its deadliest storm
Philippines marks five years since its deadliest storm
US moves to legally control tanker and 2M barrels of oil seized off Venezuela’s coast in December
- “The era of secretly bankrolling regimes that pose clear threats to the United States is over,” Bondi said
- The Trump administration has set out to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s oil
WASHINGTON: The Justice Department has filed a complaint to legally take ownership of a sanctioned tanker and nearly 2 million barrels of petroleum seized off the coast of Venezuela in December, another step by President Donald Trump’s administration to assert power over the country’s oil sector after capturing leader Nicolás Maduro.
It’s the first complaint filed by the US to start the legal process to formally take control of one of at least 10 oil tankers intercepted by American authorities since late last year. The US has accused Venezuela of using a shadow fleet of falsely flagged vessels to smuggle illicit crude into global supply chains.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, the era of secretly bankrolling regimes that pose clear threats to the United States is over,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an emailed statement.
“This Department of Justice will deploy every legal authority at our disposal to completely dismantle and permanently shutter any operation that defies our laws and fuels chaos across the globe.”
The seizure of the vessel, named the Skipper, in December was the Republican administration’s first in a series of similar actions and marked a dramatic escalation in Trump’s campaign to pressure Maduro by cutting off access to oil revenue that has long been the lifeblood of Venezuela’s economy.
Maduro was arrested in a US raid last month and was taken to New York to face drug trafficking charges. He has pleaded not guilty, protesting his capture and declaring himself “the president of my country.” Following his ouster, several vessels fled the coast of Venezuela in spite of Trump’s quarantine on sanctioned oil tankers, and US forces have tracked and interdicted some of them as far away as the Indian Ocean.
The Trump administration has set out to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s oil and oversee where the revenue flows. The US has begun lifting broad sanctions to allow foreign companies to operate in Venezuela in a bid to revitalize the ailing oil industry.
A judge in Washington’s federal court must sign off on the US government’s bid to permanently take ownership of the Skipper and its cargo so the oil can potentially be sold.
The Justice Department alleges the tanker moved oil from Iran and Venezuela throughout the world, flying false flags to hide its illegal activities while providing revenue for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which the US has deemed a foreign terrorist organization.
“Because of the coordinated efforts of our prosecutors and law enforcement partners, a ghost tanker that for years secretly moved illicit oil from Iran and Venezuela around the globe has been taken off the seas,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva, who leads the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a statement.
“Today’s actions are an important step in making America and the world safer by disrupting the flow of millions of dollars to foreign terrorist organizations,” he said.
