Hams pro­vide emer­gency communications
Typhoon Bopha (local name Pablo) has hit The Philip­pines uproot­ing trees, down­ing pow­er lines, spark­ing land­slides and mak­ing 40,000 peo­ple head for shelters.
It was the strongest of about 20 typhoons to affect the coun­try this year with its heavy rain and wind gust­ing up to 210km/h as it came ashore at Mindanao.
The Philip­pine Ama­teur Radio Asso­ci­a­tion (PARA) had its ham emer­gency radio oper­a­tions (HERO) work­ing when the typhoon struck the south­ern Philippines.
PARA is using all avail­able means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion like HF radio (7.095 MHz) VHF radio (144.740 MHz), the inter­net and social media (Face­book, email, echolink) to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and give updates to all concerned.
Ham emer­gency radio oper­a­tors have been assist­ing in the com­mu­ni­ca­tion needs of these cities (as report­ed by DW5JMJ, DU5AOK and DU8BGA).
RADNET 5, a local club of ama­teur radio oper­a­tors in Tacloban City, is very active in help­ing pro­vide the city with vital com­mu­ni­ca­tions link.
It is in con­stant coor­di­na­tion with the City Dis­as­ter Risk Reduc­tion Man­age­ment Coun­cil (CDRRMC). So far, 5,700 fam­i­lies have been evac­u­at­ed from Saint Bernard.
RADNET 5 is also assist­ing the Red Cross in Tacloban and Saint Bernard. The City Gov­ern­ment of Tacloban City has used the Tacloban Con­ven­tion Cen­tre as one of its evac­u­a­tion centres.
The casu­al­ties have been min­i­mal, due to prepa­ra­tions, the coop­er­a­tion of evac­uees and the mam­moth response and recov­ery efforts.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair of the IARU Region 3, Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee, with PARA Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer Eddie Valdez DU1EV.