Survivors light candles to mark 2nd anniversary of deadly typhoon

Survivors of typhoon Haiyan marked the second anniversary of the disaster on Sunday evening (November 8) by lighting candles for their loved ones around Tacloban City.

Haiyan was the strongest typhoon ever to make landfall, destroying practically everything in its path as it swept across central Philippines on November 8, 2013.

Seven-metre storm surges destroyed around 90 percent of the city of Tacloban in Leyte province. It killed 6,300 people, left more than 1,000 missing and affected more than 14.5 million people across 44 provinces.

Thousands of candles lit Tacloban’s roads on Sunday night, capping a two-day commemoration joined by local officials, government workers and residents of Leyte province.

“What we learned is that it is only through solidarity and helping each other could we get back on our feet and make progress,” said Marissa Cabaljao, an officer with the People’s Surge Alliance for Disaster Survivors.

Residents offered flowers at a newly constructed seaside monument bearing the names of Haiyan’s victims. Many families lost more than one member in the disaster, and never found their loved ones’ remains.

Survivors also sent lanterns into the night sky to remember those who perished.

Two years after Haiyan struck, Tacloban is slowly bouncing back but hundreds of families are still struggling to make ends meet and clamour for proper housing.

The Philippine National Housing Authority says around 205,000 houses are needed to accommodate the families in Leyte Province who lost their homes in Haiyan. The typhoon displaced up to 4 million.

To date, only 17,000 units have been completed by the government, and only 92,000 houses costing approximately $550 million are earmarked for construction.

In 2014, a year after Haiyan’s devastation, Philippine President Benigno Aquino approved a $3.74 billion six-year master plan to rebuild housing, social services, and public infrastructure in affected provinces.

However, officials have cited delays in finding rehousing sites, slowness in the release of promised funds, and difficulty in finding what the money has been spent on.