Children on Cebu island in Philippines plead for help

Oxfam Ireland experts have reported seeing children begging for help and holding up signs that read: "Help. We need water, food and medicines."

The children were in Daanbantayan, the northernmost tip of Cebu island, where 98 per cent of buildings have been damaged, including one being used as an evacuation centre. Roads to the area are almost impassable, with trees and wreckage of houses lining the highway, and aid workers are struggling to access many other affected areas across the country, the charity said.

Utter devastation
Tata Abella-Bolo, a member of Oxfam's emergency team in Cebu, said: "The scene is one of utter devastation. There is no electricity in the entire area and no water.

“Local emergency food stocks have been distributed but stocks are dwindling. The immediate need is water, both for drinking and cleaning.”

Oxfam Ireland has launched an emergency appeal to raise vital funds and provide clean water, safe sanitation and shelter to those worst affected by the typhoon. Chief executive Jim Clarken said: “With their crops wiped out, fishing boats ruined and homes destroyed, it is the poorest that have been hardest hit by this violent and deadly storm.

“Our immediate focus is on making sure people have clean water, safe sanitation and a roof over their heads.

“The death toll continues to rise in a country already struggling to pick up the pieces following a deadly earthquake and a storm last month that wiped out rice harvests in what is the world’s third highest disaster risk country.” – (PA)