Storm surge

No one who has seen the effects of Hurricane Haiyen could fail to be moved by the enormity of the human suffering it has wrought. For the dead there is sympathy, but they are gone, gone in a rush of fast flowing water or crushed by a falling house. It is the survivors who have the real problem. As in the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, perhaps 250,000 people died in seconds, but is was the millions left homeless and destitute that touched our hearts. A new tsunami of aid arrived from the wealthy west; some said it was too much, that it threatened to overwhelm the authorities in its sheer volume. As the campaign to raise funds for the hapless residents of the Philippines rapidly gains momentum, will the same happen there? I hope not, and perhaps they will be able to distribute the aid better than in 2004, because that embattled little archipelago is used to disaster and dealing with its terrible consequences.

One wonders if our opulent country would do any better if we had been struck by such a storm. If the early accounts are to be believed, wind speeds were the highest ever recorded at something over 200 mph. My house is made of sturdy brick and stone, but it was not designed to cope with such a battering as this. Its roof would have been ripped off in a heartbeat and left it uninhabitable. Low lying areas would have been inundated; had the storm hit London the Thames barrage would have been of little help. If it roiled up the Bristol channel, where I live would be under several feet of water. It is as if not a hurricane, but a massive tornado had struck the Philippines, as can be seen from the views from the air that have been seen around the world: huge areas where every structure has simply been blown flat. We are used to tornado tracks in America's mid-west; they look very similar but they are at most a mile wide. In the Philippines the track was hundreds of miles wide.

So let's get out there and donate! I'm giving my cash to Oxfam, because they have an unimpeachable record for getting the aid to where it is needed and wasting a minimum on administration. You give to the charity of your choice, but for God's sake give!