The superstorm that smashed into the Philippines on Friday was always going to cause considerable damage, but just how much devastation it has wrought is only now becoming tragically apparent. The 10,000 death toll is a back of the envelope figure. Given that some ten million people appear to have been in the path of Typhoon Haiyan, there must be very real concerns that the final death toll for this, the strongest tropical storm ever recorded, will be significantly higher. Philippine President Benigno Aquino appears to have been advised of this terrible possibility in that he has declared a state of “national calamity”. It is not of course the dead who are the real concern, but the living who find themselves cut off without power, food and clean water. These victims, who run into the hundreds of thousands at least, have very often lost their homes and businesses and are struggling to survive in remote communities. Relief workers are still battling through mudslides, fallen trees and collapsed bridges to try to reach large numbers of these unfortunates. The extent of their desperation has been demonstrated by the unedifying spectacle of aid trucks being stopped and raided. Stupid and selfish acts, yes, but demonstrative of the panic and hunger. One or two aid trucks would not probably feed everyone in the area for more than a day or two and who could say when the next shipments would arrive? The international community is once again rallying to assist the stricken while Filipinos around the world, including here in the Kingdom, are busy raising funds to send to relief charities. There are also programs to pool news of different communities and locations so that expatriate Filipinos have been able to form a better idea of what is going on back home. A US aircraft carrier and its attendant escorts is one of the more notable elements of the early international aid effort. Warships from other countries plus specialist search and rescue team to search for trapped survivors are all converging on the Philippines. Meanwhile, guarantees of international aid are flooding in. The UN has promised $25 million, Australia, Japan and the UK have each pledged $10 million and Taiwan has said it is giving $200,000. However, perhaps unfortunately, China has so far only come up with a promise of $100,000. Typhoon Haiyan of course went on to hit Guangxi province in China, but by then it had been downgraded to a tropical storm. Beijing and Manila are currently in dispute over the Spratly Islands, part of which are claimed by the Philippines and all of which are claimed by China. The limited immediate response of the Chinese leadership to Manila's tragedy is perhaps a bad mistake. The Communist party leadership may rarely rush to decisions, but since they are all gathered for a key strategy meeting in Beijing, a faster and more generous response might have been expected. At the moment China's reaction looks mean-spirited and open to speculation that it has been informed by the bitter battle of words over the Spratlys. A rapid reversal of this stance and the dispatch of physical aid, perhaps spearheaded by the country's new and first aircraft carrier, as well as a notably more generous donation from the world's second largest economy, could yet reverse the current negative perception.
