Typhoon death toll increases in Philippines

In the Philippines, the death toll from Typhoon Bopha has climbed above 700, and hundreds are still missing, many of them fishermen feared lost at sea. Over 100,000 are homeless, and hundreds of people are being treated for injuries sustained during the storm.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, working together with the Philippine Red Cross, is bringing relief to thousands of survivors in the south of the country, which was hit first and hardest by the typhoon when it made landfall on December 4th.

“There’s nothing left in some places. We tried to find evacuation centres, but many of them had collapsed,” says Wilson Mondal, an ICRC emergency team member who was deployed to an area where the eye of the typhoon passed. “Some people are just living on the side of the road. They need everything.”


Listen to our interview with Cynthia Lee, spokeswoman for the International Committee for the Red Cross in Manila: