From Manila Bulletin, November 21, 2013
More bodies are being recovered at the Supertyphoon Yolanda ravaged areas bringing up the death toll to 5258 according to Task Force Cadaver. 1,602 are still reported missing. If the 1602 missing can not be accounted for, the death toll could reach 6, 800+ and there could be more. The 10, 000 announcement by Police Officer Elmer Soria who was relieved as a Recon Commander for making such a huge number (to the embarrassment of PNoy) could be true after all. Shall Pnoy reinstate him for being accurate? Or will Amanpour do that for officer Soria?
Some 2, 145, 359 families, or 9,996,065 persons were displaced by the typhoon.
Good news - Filipino nurses in the US would be coming home to assist in the disaster relief and rehab of affected areas
"US Nurses Reach Out
At least 1,500 nurses working in the United States will be Philippines-bound, dispatched in several batches, to augment Filipino medical contingents aiding the victims of super-typhoon “Yolanda.”
The first batch of volunteer-nurses, with disaster assessment experience, arrived in Manila from San Francisco over the weekend to join 36 other Filipino members of the 170,000-strong National Nurses United (NNU) already in the country.
The Registered Nurses Response Network (RNRN), a project of the California Nurses Foundation, launched a campaign to reach out to support local caregivers who are on the front lines right after news of the devastation to lives and property wrought by “Yolanda” in the Visayan region.
RNRN, also known as Heroes for Disaster Relief, called for volunteer nurses in the US and reponses were received from 50 states and its affiliate organizations in 12 other countries. Those who cannot come contributed to the response network funds. Each team will stay in affected areas in the country from 10 to 14 days for the humanitarian mission.
NNU had been in constant communication with the Philippine Alliance of Health Workers, an affiliate organization.
Zenei Triunfo Cortez, a top official of California nurses’ group, said every nurse sent was trained on disaster situations. Cortez, the first Filipino to head the group founded in 1903, added that the initial team “will effectively determine needs on the ground as we continue to contact volunteers.”
Filipino migrant Mary Faith Buenaventura, a medical neurology unit nurse at Kaiser Permanente in San Jose City, California, with training in disaster assistance, said she had not gone back to Manila for more than a decade, “but this time for a compelling and self-fulfilling reason to be of help.” (With reports from Hannah L. Torregoza and Luchie A. Arguelles)"
