Typhoon Ketsana: Philippines

Oxfam is there

Oxfam is providing support to 125,000 of the worst affected people in Metro Manila and Bulacan, Laguna and Rizal provinces.

Our response has so far included distributing hygiene kits containing items such as water storage containers, sleeping mats, soap, clothes and underwear. We are also distributing small cash grants to help families sheltering in evacuation centres get back on their feet.

In the immediate aftermath of the typhoon we distributed basic emergency shelter kits to 3,500 families (approximately 17,500 people) in Bulacan.

Because of the high risk of waterborne disease, Oxfam’s public health team has been distributing special hygiene leaflets and running public health awareness sessions. We are also constructing latrines, including a new prototype ‘floating latrine’, to help ensure people staying in evacuation centres have adequate sanitation facilities.

Many people’s means of making a living has been badly affected by the typhoon – farmers’ land has been flooded, fishermen have lost equipment, and many people have been forced to seek shelter in areas far away from their work. Oxfam is planning a series of cash grants to support income-generating activities and help people find new ways of making a living.

We continue to lobby the government on disaster preparedness issues, and to advocate for the rights of ‘informal settlers’ or squatters, who have been one of the worst affected communities by the disaster.

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East Asia Disasters Appeal

Update: 27 October 2009

Oxfam's emergency response in the Philippines is supported by DFID, CIDA, OFDA, SIDA, DEC and UNICEF.

The situation

• More than 4 million people affected.
• Thousands of people believed still stranded by the floods.

Photo gallery: Philippines emergency response

In Manila, as much rain fell in six hours when Typhoon Ketsana hit as would normally fall in a whole month. This caused heavy flooding across the city, its suburbs and in the rural areas, forcing many to flee their homes.

More than 189,000 people have been sheltering in schools and other evacuation centres since the typhoon struck.

In some areas, people have begun to be forcibly displaced from the schools they were staying at as lessons start up again, and have been moved to crowded temporary sites such as basketball courts, where facilities are very limited.

Floodwater levels remain high in many areas and because much of the ground water has become contaminated, cases of waterborne diseases such as leptospirosis and acute watery diarrhoea are on the rise.

Donate now to the emergency response