Disaster “bakwits”

CHEERS TO Reporter’s Notebook for an incisive report on the plight of disaster evacuees who are still in evacuation centers months after the disasters occurred.

Last July 3, the program looked into the conditions of evacuees in a Navotas evacuation center after typhoon “Pedring”( international name: “Nesat”)  hit the area in September 2011. “Pedring” left 1500 families in a makeshift evacuation center (although some were victims of other minor disasters). Nine months after “Pedring”  struck, 700 families were still living there.

Interviewing the families, Reporter’s Notebook reported that last year’s the food ration stopped last January. Some children had to beg for fish from fishermen at the Navotas port for their families to sell. Water supply was also an issue, as well as hygiene and sanitation.

The report added that the Navotas case was similar to that of Del Pan, Tondo, when residents had to flee after a fire last May 11. Two months after the incident, about a hundred families were still living in an evacuation center.