Smiles amid the rubble

MANILA, Philippines - Basey is a town in ruins. Houses that once bordered the sea and withstood previous storms no longer exist. The ones left standing are hollow or missing walls. The remains – crushed concrete and shattered wood and glass – are strewn through the streets. Household appliances, corrugated iron and contorted cars add to the piles of rubble.

The town of about 60,000 people in Samar province is unrecognizable to those who grew up here. The destruction is unfathomable. It doesn’t look like the aftermath of a storm. It doesn’t look like a war zone. It is worse.

Super Typhoon Yolanda hit Basey on the morning of Nov. 8. The people here are used to strong winds – typhoons are a part of life in this part of the country. However, at about 8 a.m., the Pacific Ocean receded about 500 meters from the coast. Fish were seen flapping on the seabed.

Then a wall of dark water, at least 10 feet high, came roaring back towards shore. It crashed into Basey in three or four waves and with such tremendous force that it destroyed almost everything in its path.

The power of the rushing water, which reached chest level on the second floor of some buildings, also demolished houses further inland. Entire families were wiped out. The number of dead is still unknown and there are discrepancies between the official toll and the bodies counted in each village. Reports range from 190 to 585. Bodies were scattered throughout the town, resting where the water left them. The dead have since been buried in mass graves. The missing are either buried beneath the rubble or swept out to sea.

Everyone here has a tragedy to share. Naneti Villanueva, 70, told the story of her grandson Jason, 12, who survived the storm by climbing a coconut tree when his family fled their home in San Antonio Village, Basey. His family – mother, father and two sisters – could not climb or swim and were swept away by the powerful waves. They all died. Tears filled Villanueva’s eyes and her hands shook as she spoke. “I don’t want to eat. I cannot eat because it’s too painful,” she said. She doesn’t know how she survived. She remembers the rushing water, the panic, the swimming, the exhaustion. It’s all still raw and it hurts to look back. “Three tidal waves fell on me. I thought I’d die,” she said. “God is the only one who knows how I survived.”

Jerico Jardoc, 18, and his family evacuated their waterfront home in the town center before the storm and took shelter with friends further inland. When they returned to assess the damage they found it had been destroyed.

“After the storm we went to our house and we saw that the people were crying, there were some dead people in the sea. So scary. I saw our house. There was nothing left. There’s nothing there,” he said.

Everybody knows somebody who died. “I just imagine that it’s all just a dream,” Jardoc said.

In coastal villages on the outskirts of Basey where many of the poorest people live, the destruction is even worse. The houses here are made of lighter materials and, at a glance, it looks like no building was spared from the fury of the wind, rain and waves of Yolanda.

Rice fields, coconut trees and fishing boats – the main sources of income here – were also destroyed. Food and water is scarce and the threat of starvation and disease is imminent once what little aid makes its way here dries up.

The distribution of relief in Basey and wider Samar is slow and sporadic. Most of it is being organized by private groups or provincial government officials in nearby cities and there was very little central government presence in the area over the past week. Mother-of-two Chatylou Delgado cried with joy when a group led by a woman from Manila who grew up in Basey arrived at her village to deliver a small bag of rice and water, and clothing to each family on Saturday. “I’m just touched,” she said. Delgado lost everything in the storm and will have to rebuild from scratch, but she was thankful to be alive.

Laughter is not something you expect to hear in a disaster zone. Smiles are not something you expect to see. But the people of Basey are laughing and smiling as they start to pick up the pieces following the storm. It’s the Filipino spirit. A group of young children, who rubbed candle wax on pieces of wood found in the rubble, are using them as makeshift toboggans and speeding down a paved hill that is littered with debris with big grins on their faces. Adults share jokes and get back to work cleaning, clearing and rebuilding.

The sound of progress – hammers hitting nails, saws cutting wood – can be heard throughout the town. People rummage through the ruins for materials to rebuild homes and lives. Power lines hang at precarious angles. Some are being used as washing lines. The smell of mud, stagnant water and rotting wood fills the air.

Basey is still a desolate wasteland and things will probably get worse before they get better, but things are getting done. There is activity. There is life.

The author is a reporter with the Waikato Times in New Zealand. He is in the Philippines under the auspices of the Asia-New Zealand Foundation.