In November 2013, Hurricane Yolanda hit the Philippines and was the deadliest Filipino hurricane in modern history.  The hurricane mostly struck the Visayas, particularly Leyte, Samar, Cebu, Capiz, Negros and northern Iloilo.  The most affected town in Leyte was Tacloban City where it is predicted there were 10,000 deaths.  In Tacloban there is now a statue (one of the photos of people climbing out of the waves).  This statue is used to mark the graves of thousands of these victims.

Many of the homes were abandoned as the government has begun building houses for families who’s were destroyed or severely damaged (and who earned less that a certain amount per year) rather than attempt to rebuild them.  However not all new housing is complete and in some of the photos you can see houses with blue tarpaulin over where people are still living in their destroyed homes.  Many of the shops (saari saari stores) have American businesses on their signs as these businesses sponsored the shops and stalls so that they could quickly reopen and begin trading again.

These photos were taken in August 2015, nearly two years into the rebuilding of the city.  The city centre has mostly been rebuilt, however, as the photos show, much of the outskirts are still in disarray.

The tree trunks on two of the photos are that of coconut trees.  This was devastating for the Filipinos due to coconuts being a big source of income for the people. 

The pink house in two of the pictures is actually leaning into the sea, it is not as obvious on the photo as it was in real life.

The huge red wiry structure is actually Tacloban’s gymnasium where the town would hold functions for their (many) holidays; the government are yet to rebuild this.

The ship (which can been seen on several videos of the hurricane) was washed up during the storm and was difficult to remove from the wreckage of the city so it is now being built into the land to create a restaurant.

Miss Cheesebrough