As of 25 November, DSWD estimates that 13.1 million people have been affected by Typhoon Haiyan.  Nearly 3.5 million people remain displaced, with 239,817 IDPs seeking assistance in 1,093 evacuation centers, while over 3.1 million of the displaced are residing outside evacuation centers.

Following the typhoon, a damaged oil barge created a spill near Estancia in Iloilo, Roxas, necessitating the evacuation of 5,000 people to an evacuation center based in a school already damaged by the typhoon. The first 2,250 affected have been registered, prioritizing the most vulnerable.  30 rooms have been readied and tents were distributed to house the 120 most vulnerable families in a 100 meter radius of the spill.

In Guiuan, a camp of 76 families with 66 tents was established on the university’s grounds.  The CCCM Cluster trained site managers in CCCM tools and methodologies, and developed a site plan.  The camp has partners on the ground working to ensure that all necessary standards are met in the event that the camp evolves into a full-fledged relocation site, while return options are also being explored.

In Tacloban, outward movements have slowed from the first week, when approximately 4,000 people were moved by the Philippine Navy.  Now, the port is relatively quiet.  Registration continues at Tacloban Airport, where 1,500 individuals have been registered to date.  The Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) has completed its assessments of the 30 evacuation centers and 13 spontaneous sites in Tacloban, which house 15,668 people. 64% of these sites have management structures that will be strengthened in the coming days. 

DTM has also been used to assess 8 sites in Guiuan, 6 in Roxas, and 5 in Ormoc.  The top 5 needs in sites assessed are shelter and non-food items, food, water, camp management, health, and sanitation and hygiene.  DTM’s identification of service needs and gaps (detailed in previous updates) are helping the CCCM Cluster to liaise with other cluster and sector partners to close these gaps and raise the standards of evacuation and spontaneous sites.

While DTM assessment results are still being analyzed, preliminary results in Tacloban indicate that 83% of interviewees plan to return to their original homes, emphasizing the already strong self-recovery capacities of the community and the need to support those capacities.  In Tacloban, 86% of people residing in evacuation centers leave during the day, mainly to salvage shelter materials and conduct repairs on their homes.  The majority of assessment respondents indicated the need for CGI and fixings, as well as hand tools, to assist in their return home.  Land tenure issues will also need to be addressed, as only 11% of respondents held documentation of land tenure prior to the typhoon, and of those, 59% lost their documentation as a result of Haiyan. 

Finally, in order to pursue relocation as a durable solution, a working group is developing a strategy to identify and define “no dwelling” areas based on existing geo-hazard maps, identify the needs and priorities of IDPs to repair their homes and match them with assistance packages, and consolidate sites with IDPs lacking rapid solutions.

For more information on these and other response activities, please visit http://philippineresponse.iom.int/.