Anoth­er storm dis­as­ter ends in the Philippines
Spare a thought for those who spent a ner­vous, very wet and windy Christ­mas peri­od as Trop­i­cal Storm Quin­ta went through the south of the Philip­pines, in areas try­ing to recov­er from Typhoon Bopha ear­li­er in the month.
Acti­vat­ed dur­ing the storm was the Philip­pines Ama­teur Radio Asso­ci­a­tion emer­gency net on 7.095 MHz and VHF, to han­dle emer­gency and wel­fare traf­fic. A request to keep the HF fre­quen­cy clear was issued by PARA’s Vice Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer, Ramon J. Anquilan DU1UGZ. The emer­gency had passed and he expressed many thanks on behalf of PARA for use of the frequency.
Among those involved in the emer­gency were mem­bers of the PARA-affil­i­at­ed club, The Dis­trict 5 Radio Ama­teur Net­work DX5RAN. They were kept busy coor­di­nat­ing much need­ed pre-emp­tive evac­u­a­tions in Tacloban City and else­where along­side the Dis­as­ter Risk Reduc­tion and Man­age­ment Coun­cil. Oth­er radio ama­teurs were also involved in the over­all emergency.
Land­slides occurred in the Visayas, South­ern Leyte and East­ern Samar areas. There were more than 5,800 fer­ry pas­sen­gers strand­ed with fish­er­men told not to ven­ture out.
The arch­i­pel­ago has numer­ous severe weath­er events each year. Typhoon Bopha which made land­fall over Min­danao on Decem­ber the 2nd ripped through the south­ern provinces killing 1,067 peo­ple, leav­ing hun­dreds miss­ing and many more homeless.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee, with Ramon J. Anquilan DU1UGZ, PARA Vice Chief Oper­at­ing Officer.