Attachments
In Numbers
8 million people affected
10 regions affected
208,480 people still displaced
111,500 ha of affected crop areas
Highlights
• Twelve new mobile storage units arrived from the UN Humanitarian Response Depot in Malaysia. These will be used to establish three logistics hubs in Caraga, in addition to the one already operational in Surigao City.
• Alarming malnutrition rates pre-typhoon in some impacted areas could further deteriorate unless immediate food needs are met in the next six months.
• Assessments in affected provinces outside Caraga indicated market prices are still unstable, and food and cash are among top needs.
Situation Update
• Global reinsurer Munich Re ranked Typhoon Odette as the world’s second deadliest natural hazard in 2021 (with 408 fatalities) after the earthquake in Haiti (with 2,248 fatalities) in August 2021.
• Government verification of the number of people affected by the typhoon continues, with estimation currently at 8 million. The number of displaced people decreased from almost half a million to 208,500 over the past week as more people were able to leave evacuation centres. However, the typhoon’s impact on malnutrition and health in the medium- long-term could be massive. In Caraga, before the typhoon hit, 53 percent of families were unable to afford a nutritious diet and childhood stunting was at 36 percent (indicating a “very high public health significance”).
• Amid the absence of clean water sources, cases of deaths due to diarrhoea have been reported in Caraga. Since the typhoon struck, there have been 895 cases and 9 deaths in Siargao Island and Dinagat Islands.
WFP Response
WFP is scaling up its efforts to provide direct assistance to the affected population as well as facilitating relief efforts of the Government and the wider humanitarian community via telecommunications and logistics support. WFP’s overall response plan, valued at US$ 25.8 million, aims to 1) provide a combination of food and cash assistance to complement the Government’s distribution of food packs 2) augment relief items transportation, and bridge telecommunication outages in impacted areas.
Logistics Support
• To date, WFP has supplemented the Government’s operations with 152 trucks carrying more than 173,000 family food packs, as well as other relief items such as hygiene kits, sleeping kits, and family kits. These items were dispatched to worst-hit areas including, Surigao City, Dumaguete City, Himamaylan City, Cebu,
Bohol, Iloilo, and Southern Leyte; and to airports in Clark, Pampanga and Mactan Airbase, Cebu. As an archipelago, transporting food and other necessities to affected islands in an expedited manner has been one of the challenges faced by the Government. WFP is bridging the gaps and complementing existing efforts since the day Typhoon Odette struck.