Cebu City: Residents of Cebu affected by Typhoon Haiyan are trying to cope with difficulties, mindful that the government has its hands full in attending to everyone’s concerns.
Reports said that the number of deaths in Cebu has reached 58 but the official tally from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) placed the count at 38.
Cebu, like the heavily-affected provinces in Visayas, lay in the path of Haiyan, one of the most devastating typhoons to hit the country in recent times.
Cebu had suffered power outages and severed communication lines, but these were restored immediately.
Water supply in some parts of the province were also affected but local authorities are finding a solution to the problem.
While most fatalities in Tacloban City and Samar were those living in coastal areas, those affected in Cebu included had their houses located inland.
Thirteen of those who died in Cebu from the effects of Haiyan were from the northern towns of San Remigio, seven from Daanbantayan, three each from Madrilejos and Santa Fe, two each from Sogod and Medellin and one each in Pilar, Lapu-Lapu City and Tobogon.
Unlike in Tacloban City — the hardest hit among the areas — Cebu had largely kept itself off the limelight for certain reasons. Next to Metro Manila, the island province is the most progressive in the country.
Resilient residents
“Probably what kept Cebu going despite the fact that it had also suffered fatalities and destruction from typhoon Haiyan and all the other calamities that happened before is the attitude of its residents. People in Cebu are not averse to do things on their own without waiting for help from others. They won’t wait for the government to do things for them,” Tracy Posis, a senior executive of a business process outsourcing firm based in the city, told Gulf News in an interview.
Although Posis lives in an area in Cebu that did not suffer heavy damage from the typhoon, she said it took a while before the province recovered after being shaken to its senses over the scale and magnitude of Haiyan’s fury and destruction.
The magnitude 7.2 earthquake caused substantial damage in Cebu but it was the nearby island of Bohol that suffered much.
Unlike Luzon and Mindanao which are large landmass, the Visayas comprises several islands with hardly any large mountain range to break the impact of typhoons.
