Esti­mates of those peo­ple who died when mon­ster Typhoon Haiyan (also called
Yolan­da) hit the cen­tral Philip­pines on Fri­day ranges up to 10,000, with
many injured and nine mil­lion peo­ple affected. 

The full dam­age and death toll of the fiercest typhoon ever record­ed on land
has over­whelmed emer­gency ser­vices, sup­port­ed by the mil­i­tary and at least
five major Ham Radio Emer­gency Oper­a­tor net­work stations. 

Ramon Anquilan DU1UGZ, of the Philip­pines Ama­teur Radio Asso­ci­a­tion (PARA),
reports that among the chaos HERO sta­tions are help­ing author­i­ties and residents. 

In Tacloban the cap­i­tal of Leyte which was smashed by winds, its streets
filled by ocean surges and is now a swamp-like smelling mess. 

Ramon DU1UGZ said that RADNET with Nathan Eamiguel DU5AOK, Vil­ma Eamiguel
DU5VIE, and the mem­bers of their local club are work­ing hard. 

“Their HF sta­tion is locat­ed on the sec­ond floor of the Tacloban City Hall,
pow­ered by a gen­er­a­tor main­tained by the local gov­ern­ment unit. Two metre
band com­mu­ni­ca­tions is sim­plex because there is no elec­tric­i­ty to pow­er their
repeater. 

“The VHF mem­bers serve as field per­son­nel who go on var­i­ous errands — verification
of request­ed infor­ma­tion, liai­son work, and bits and ends. 

“The offi­cers led by Nathan DU5AOK dis­patch their mem­bers based on the priority
traf­fic han­dled by the HF station.” 

He said the Tacloban HERO sta­tion has been used by the Red Cross to track
a relief vehi­cle ver­i­fy­ing the wel­fare of its vol­un­teers who were stopped
and ran­sacked by those impa­tient for aid to arrive. 

Oth­er requests for help came from the Nation­al Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Commission
(NTC) region­al office in Tacloban that need­ed hand-held radio contacts. 

In his report he talks of anoth­er local club ACCESS 5 attached to responding
gov­ern­ment agen­cies and relief organ­i­sa­tions. A mil­i­tary HF sta­tion is linked
with the Nation­al Dis­as­ter Risk Reduc­tion and Mit­i­ga­tion Coun­cil (NDRRMC)
which is locat­ed inside Camp Aguinal­do in Que­zon City. 

“How­ev­er ACCESS 5 is using VHF very effec­tive­ly act­ing as guides for rescue
and retrieval teams in the field, just like some RADNET vol­un­teers,” said
Ramon DU1UGZ. 

In East­ern Samar, Lester Price DV5PO (also ZL5PO) based in Boron­gan is providing
valu­able sit­u­a­tion reports. Lester and his wife had a very lucky escape -
they held on to the doors of their house for four hours until the surge waters
reced­ed, that claimed around 500 lives in the coastal barangay or village
alone. 

Anoth­er third HF sta­tion acti­vat­ed by the Depart­ment of Sci­ence and Technology
(DOST) is using equip­ment from Nathan DU5AOK and his friend Dominique walked
half a day to the gov­ern­ment cen­tre in Palo and the DOST Region­al Office.
Dominique, who is actu­al­ly the office dri­ver, and the Region­al Director,
Dr Eduar­do Esparan­cil­la alter­nate as operators. 

In DU7 (Cebu, Bohol and Negros Ori­en­tal islands includ­ing the island province
of Siqui­jor), the Cebu Ama­teur Radio League (CARL) has dis­patched a team
to the Munic­i­pal­i­ty of Ban­tayan — locat­ed in the north­ern tip of Cebu. 

This munic­i­pal­i­ty is the hard­est hit in Cebu with an esti­mat­ed 90 per cent
of struc­tures lev­elled. The CARL team (pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed on) is handling
HF traf­fic. Anoth­er com­po­nent is the Choco­late Hills Ama­teur Radio League
(CHARL) based in Tag­bi­la­ran City in Bohol — an area struck by an intensity
7.2 earth­quake recently. 

The club sta­tion DU7BC along with its mem­bers Ger­ry Mar­mi­to DU7AU, Ador Lamoste
DU7AL are ready to mon­i­tor and relay mes­sages between Tacloban and the principal
receiv­ing stations. 

The third DU7 com­po­nent is from Dumaguete City. Roy Alcan­tara DU7DDJ together
with James DU7JGU (Island Province of Siqui­jor) are lead­ing NORAD‑7 with
long range com­mu­ni­ca­tions to the Dumaguete local gov­ern­ment unit passing
traf­fic from Tacloban to their area in Negros island. NORAD‑7 mem­bers also
act as field oper­a­tors and runners. 

In DU6 (Panay, Negros Occi­den­tal and neigh­bour­ing islands) heard are Bobby
Gar­cia DU6BG in Iloi­lo, Iver Astronomo DV6ILA and Arnel DV6WAV in the Roxas
Provin­cial Capi­tol as they are embed­ded with the Provin­cial Dis­as­ter Risk
Reduc­tion and Mit­i­ga­tion Coun­cil (PDRRMC). 

Scat­tered all over the arch­i­pel­ago of the Philip­pines are sta­tions receiving
out­go­ing traf­fic from Tacloban and the oth­er affect­ed areas. 

Among them are Jojo DU1VHY, Thel­ma DU1IVT, Romy Isidro DV1SMQ and Max 4F1BYN
— act­ing as the main receiv­ing sta­tions on a rota­tion­al basis since HERO
acti­va­tion began. 

Oth­er sta­tions are also active in receiv­ing out­bound wel­fare traf­fic, mainly
to inform fam­i­ly mem­bers and rel­a­tives of their con­di­tions — Totie DV1TEE,
Lito DU4DF, Atty. Albert DU4ABA, Bob­by DU6BG, and Ramon DU1UGZ. 

On stand­by as relays are Doc Piciong DV9DOC, Mar­lu DU8WX, Butch DU1RP (PARA
Sec­Gen on his mobile sta­tion in Davao City), and others. 
 
Anoth­er facet of the oper­a­tions is the use of Echolink by CARE‑4 in Naga
City (DU4) and COMPASS in Ton­do, Mani­la (DU1).

Ramon DU1UGZ said, “Basi­cal­ly, the Tacloban and oth­er sta­tions in the disaster
areas per­mit only out­bound traf­fic as pri­or­i­ty messages. 

“This is a pol­i­cy deci­sion by NTS Co-Chair Jojo DU1VHY and as request­ed by
RADNET. We can clas­si­fy the mes­sages as fol­lows: We Sur­vived Mes­sages, institutions/government
agen­cies to their cen­tral or part­ner offices in Mani­la, and urgent requests
for spe­cif­ic form of assis­tance or relief items.? 

The relief and retrieval oper­a­tions are mov­ing slow­ly and the HERO operations
are prob­a­bly going to last a week or more from today. 

He said that Tele­coms com­pa­nies are steadi­ly restor­ing cel­lu­lar mobile services
and today there was inter­mit­tent lim­it­ed cov­er­age in Tacloban. 

“As the pri­ma­ry tele­coms ser­vices are restored, there will be less reliance
on the ama­teur radio ser­vice in Tacloban. 

“This will mean a more dif­fi­cult peri­od because the remote areas not reached
yet by gov­ern­ment and oth­er agen­cies will now demand com­mu­ni­ca­tion links. 

?Our assets will be thin­ly spread result­ing in gaps which only a robust service
such those found in first world coun­tries,””  said Ramon DU1UGZ. 

Cur­rent­ly an aver­age of one to two min­utes is spent per mes­sage, and depending
on band con­di­tions, the rate of traf­fic per hour would be 40 to 60 messages. 

A more in-depth analy­sis is not pos­si­ble until all HERO sta­tions are closed
and sub­mit their log details. 

Ramon DU1UGZ notes that news media has start­ed to notice ham radio, but don’t
under­stand that the HERO net­work is play­ing an impor­tant role in the disaster. 

“Although there’s some very brief TV expo­sure they are yet to adequately
report on the vol­un­tary ser­vice it pro­vides, and the emer­gency communications
to the agen­cies and com­mu­ni­ty in times of dis­as­ter,” he said. 

The typhoon cut a path of destruc­tion in cen­tral Philip­pines on Fri­day, but
the fast-mov­ing Cat­e­go­ry 5 weath­er sys­tem missed the dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed capital
of Manila. 

Philip­pines Pres­i­dent Benig­no Aquino inspect­ed Tacloban City where almost
all build­ings were lost as huge surge waves came through its streets. He
pledged that local author­i­ties are to house about 45,000 fam­i­lies and give
them food. 

The Pres­i­dent said he was lost for words to ade­quate­ly describe the enormity
of dis­as­ter affect­ing 36 provinces. He has declared a nation­al calamity. 

A large inter­na­tion­al relief effort is under way although it remains mostly
chaot­ic with res­cue work­ers strug­gling to reach some remote areas. Some 22
coun­tries and the Euro­pean Union have pledged help. 

Also the loss­es include 71,000 hectares of agri­cul­tur­al land with crops of
rice and corn hard­est hit. 

— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.