Yolanda survivors flee Tacloban for uncertainty in Manila

Maricel Engracias sat in a row of chairs in front of the airfield at the Villamor Airbase in Pasay city. Having just arrived from Tacloban city, she was breastfeeding her three-week old twin daughters Maxine and Sabrina, who had no idea what they had just gone through.

 

Their bodies still wrinkled and pink, the twins were only two weeks old when super typhoon Yolanda ravaged Tacloban city last week.

 

They may be among the youngest survivors of the world's strongest typhoon to hit land.

 

Engracias knew about the strength of the storm and the strong winds that could tear their wooden one-storey house apart.

 

She didn't know about the wall of seawater that would come after, though.

 

"Sabi lang raw, malakas ang bagyo na makakasira ng bahay. Wala namang sinabing may kasamang tubig na parang tsunami," Engracias said, referring to the abnormal rise in sea water after the immensely strong typhoon. 

 

Engracias is among scores of survivors who say they didn't know about a coming storm surge. This, despite repeated warnings from authorities that a storm this devastating could lift the sea in a surging wall of waves.

 

Engracias took shelter in the civic center, a supposed place for protection that ended up a mass grave for families willing to flee.

 

The civic center was by the coast, a deadly place for a typhoon that bad, Engracias said.

 

When she saw the wall of seawater, she immediately climbed a wooden pillar along the wall of the stadium , placing her weeks-old daughters in the small space between the wall and the ceiling.

 

It was the decision that spared her daughters' life and her own.

 

"Umakyat ako dun sa pader, nilagay ko lang yung mga bata sa tuktok, pinagkasya ko lang para hindi malaglag," Engracias shared.

 

The new mother remembered seeing fellow evacuees drown in the unexpected surge of water.

 

"Na-sho-shock ako sa nangyari. Marami ring nalunod dun, namatay, mga kasamahan din ng mga neighbor namin," she said.

 

But their family suffered a loss despite Engracias' survival. Her husband, believed to be at the barangay hall when the typhoon struck, is still missing.

 

Engracias was lucky to have been in an evacuation center. The family of Odesa Dela Cruz had to endure the monster winds of the typhoon battering their flimsy wooden house in the city's Barangay 58. Dela Cruz seemed surprised that the seawater reached their house, meters away from the coastal city proper. 

 

Water came pouring into their wooden house, reaching up to their necks, Dela Cruz said. Most of the family were children - from as old as 12 years old to as young as four years old.

 

The Dela Cruz family, most of whom were kids from four to twelve years old, had no choice but to stay and take their chances with the seawater. Going outside in the hellish wind was an even riskier gamble.

 

"Tumaas ung tubig hangga't dito," Dela Cruz said, pointing at her neck. She said the children climbed on chairs and clung to the walls to escape the rising waters.

 

The mother went on to say that they'd rather drown as a family than attempt to escape.

 

"Maraming lumilipad na mga yero, ba. Wala kaming choice na lumabas. 'dun na lang kami. Bahala na ang Diyos kung anong mangyari sa amin. Basta, sama sama na lang," Dela Cruz shared.

 

The winds subsided before the waters swallowed the entire family, who then escaped through their kitchen window.

 

They braved the waters to the Tacloban airport, where they joined the scores of dazed survivors.

 

Engracias and Dela Cruz are among the 2,700 Filipinos who have left Tacloban city via an American aircraft, a temporary reprieve from the wasteland that was once a vibrant coastal city of 220,000, now reduced to shambles.

 

They chose to stay with their relatives in Manila. Both mothers said here in the country's congested capital, they would try to pick their lives up.

 

"Subukan ko siguro mag-sales lady," Engracias said. — JDS, GMA News