REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) here on Friday sent humanitarian aid and volunteers to the Philippines to help with evacuation and rehabilitation efforts after the country was hit by typhoon Haiyan on November 8.
"There are 688,862 tons of food products, such as instant noodles, crackers, mineral water, biscuits and rice, as well as medicines, family tents and blankets. We also sent five nurses, 10 sanitation experts, two helicopter pilots, two mechanics, four media officers and some volunteers specializing in logistics, monitoring and evaluation and administration," PMI's Chairman Jusuf Kalla said here on Friday.
The team will stay in Negros Oriental province, the Philippines, for a month. The area, consisting of 90,000 families, has, so far, received very little humanitarian aid.
The death toll from typhoon Haiyan (locally named as Yolanda) has crossed the 4,000 mark, the Philippine disaster agency, quoted by Xinhua news agency, said last Wednesday (Nov 20).
National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) Executive Director Eduardo del Rosario said that 4,011 people perished in the super typhoon that struck the country, particularly in the Eastern Visayas region, on November 8.
The number of those reported injured also rose to 18, 557, while 1,602 people remain missing, he added.
The cost of property damage is estimated at 12 billion pesos (US$275 million).
Some 2.15 million families, or nearly 10 million people, were affected in 10,718 villages across 44 provinces. Of the affected population, 4.4 million were displaced and are being helped by evacuation centers.
Estimating the total cost of the damage, Del Rosario said about 1.79 billion pesos (US$41 million) could be attributed to damaged or destroyed infrastructure, while 10.45 billion pesos (US$239.6 million) was due to agricultural losses in seven regions of the country.
Government and non-governmental organizations have provided 387 million pesos (US$8.87 million) in relief assistance to the affected families.
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