The tarpaulin barely held against the wind, sagging under days of ceaseless rain.
For the earthquake survivors of San Remigio, in the central Philippines, it was all that remained – a thin sheet of plastic above a patch of mud, standing in for the homes a 6.9-magnitude quake had reduced to rubble weeks earlier.
The storm, known locally as Tino, drenched thousands of families still huddled in their makeshift shelters. Roads vanished beneath floodwater. Power lines snapped and stayed down. Aid was stranded on the wrong side of washed-out highways. For many, hope felt as precarious as the tarpaulin pinned above their heads.
“One piece of tarpaulin the size of a plywood sheet for a whole family, that was all they had,” said Mayfourth Luneta, deputy executive director of the Center for Disaster Preparedness. “If you have five family members, you’re basically just standing under it.”
Luneta had flown from Manila to central Cebu province after the quake, only to find herself trapped in the chaos of a second disaster. Kalmaegi struck just as her team was due to deliver relief. The main highway out of Mandaue City turned into a river.
