On October 17, a tropical cyclone with international name “Haima” (local name “Lawin”) entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) as a typhoon with maximum sustained winds of 175 kph with gusts of up to 215 kph. Typhoon Haima generated moderate to heavy rains within a 600 km diameter from its center. By 1:00 PM on the 19th of October, typhoon Haima intensified into a super typhoon with maximum sustained wind of up to 225 kph with gusts of up to 315 kph. Haima reached land by 11:00 PM on that same day. Super typhoon Haima crossed over the provinces of Cagayan and Apayao before leaving the PAR at 10:00 PM on the 20th of October.
As of October 24, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) reported a total of 33,183 households (158,863 persons) that are still displaced. The same report indicated a total of 8 casualties and 1 injured as result of the typhoon. Super typhoon Haima left 65 barangays flooded with up to 3 feet of water level. 33 road sections and bridges in Regions I, II, III and CAR were reported impassable due to flooding and landslides one week after the typhoon. Power lines are down in the most remote communities and electricity is only expected to be restored in two months. The disaster agency also reported that super typhoon Haima caused more than 2.5 billion Philippines pesos (PHP) worth of damages (PHP 1.58B in infrastructure and PHP 0.94B in agriculture).
As part of the revision process of the ACT Alliances Humanitarian Response Mechanism, the ACT Secretariat is piloting new tools with selected Forums to identify how to improve the overall mechanism. In the near future, the “Preliminary Appeal” will be replaced by the “Concept Note”, a shorter more concise document which summarizes the proposed ACT response and emphasizes collaboration amongst the ACT members. The Philippines Forum has graciously accepted to pilot the draft version of the Concept Note so that we can draw lessons learned from its utilization and modify the template and process related to it accordingly.
