The num­ber killed by Typhoon Haiyan (local­ly named Yolan­da) has dramatically
increased with the Red Cross now unof­fi­cial­ly esti­mat­ing 1,000 dead. 

The full dam­age of the mon­ster typhoon, which hit the cen­tral Philippines
on Fri­day, is not known as author­i­ties are find­ing it hard to reach or report
some places. Many hous­es and build­ings have been destroyed, with four million
peo­ple affected. 

Ramon Anquilan DU1UGZ, of the Philip­pines Ama­teur Radio Asso­ci­a­tion (PARA),
reports that the Ham Emer­gency Radio Oper­a­tor (HERO) con­tin­ues to help authorities
and res­i­dents by han­dling relief messages. 

PARA had acti­vat­ed the HERO oper­a­tors in advance of the typhoon hit­ting land
and have been used through­out the coun­try. The Nation­al Telecommunications
Com­mis­sion con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor it.
 
Ramon DU1UGZ said in one of the worst affect­ed areas of Tacloban is Nathan
Eamiguel DU5AOK with oth­er RADNET members. 

He said, “They are act­ing as field liaisons to val­i­date and secure requested
infor­ma­tion on the where­abouts and sit­u­a­tion of Tacloban res­i­dents from relatives
from all over the country. 

?Our Nation­al Traf­fic Sys­tem (NTS) Co-Chair­man Jojo Vicen­cio DU1VHY, together
with Max San­tos 4F1BYN relo­cat­ed to La Mon­tana Estates in Antipo­lo — the
QTH of Peter Schue­mann DU1DL, to bet­ter copy trans­mis­sions from Tacloban
City.? 

The Tacloban sta­tion is now trans­mit­ting bare­foot at 100 watts, pass­ing health
and wel­fare traffic. 

“The far­thest that RADNET mem­bers have pen­e­trat­ed is Palo which is the nearest
munic­i­pal­i­ty to Tacloban City. There are still no cel­lu­lar phone services
or elec­tric­i­ty in the area,” Ramon DU1UGZ said. 

Among the oth­er Ham Emer­gency Radio Oper­a­tor activ­i­ty is the Cebu Amateur
Radio League (CARL) DX7CA which has been deployed to Ban­tayan Islands. 

He said, “Ban­tayan Islands is one of the hard­est hit islands east of Cebu
Province. The DX7CA team is com­posed of Sid­ney Tan DW7EEE, Don­don Medina
4F7FDM along with his wife Mylene DW7MYL and their son Miko DV7MYC, and DW7MMM. 

“Anoth­er DX7CA team is sta­tioned at the Cebu Capi­tol Build­ing com­posed of
Steve Tan DW7MCC, Randy Ben­baye DV7NGG, DW7EUR and Abel DU1CLZ,” said Ramon
DU1UGZ. 

“There has been no news emerg­ing from the islands as the ini­tial national
gov­ern­ment focus has been on Tacloban City and its neigh­bour­ing municipalities. 

“How­ev­er the Gov­er­nor Davide has already gone to the islands and convened
a needs-assess­ment meet­ing with local offi­cials,” he said. 

The gov­ern­ment has set up com­mand cen­tres in both the East­ern and Western
Visayas, and may use the HERO net­work, to bet­ter coor­di­nate the recovery
effort. 

It the path of the typhoon was the island of Bohol, the epi­cen­tre of a 7.1‑magnitude
earth­quake in Octo­ber that killed 222 peo­ple and left 5,000 sur­vivors in
tents. 

Res­cuers and relief sup­plies are reach­ing remote places for the first time,
paint­ing a gloomy pic­ture indeed. 

The Philip­pines had Typhoon Bopha in Decem­ber 2012 that left about 2000 people
dead or miss­ing on the south­ern island of Mindanao. 

Typhoon Haiyan was a fast-mov­ing Cat­e­go­ry 5 typhoon with winds gust­ing up
to 379km/h affect­ing 36 provinces in the Philip­pines and is now head­ed for
Viet­nam where 300,000 peo­ple are in storm shelters. 

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