After He Left - The Devastating Aftermath

At 4:50 a.m. on Sunday, Super Typhoon Rolly inch its way and made a landfall over Bato Catanduanes. With 315 kilometers per hour maximum sustained winds, it began to pummel everything in its path and left the province with devastating marks. It continued it's way over to the province of Albay and began to cut its trail of death when the heavy rains caused the debris from Mayon volcano's massive eruption in the past, such as ashes, pumice, rocks and sand flowed down and buried the villages of Travesia and San Francisco in mud and rocks. There are a total of 10 casualties in Albay according to the recent news report and three people are still missing.

In this photo, a dead woman from Guinobatan, Albay was being taken out of the mud after super typhoon Rolly left the province.

A person tried to save his life but unable to because his body is already buried in the ground when the lahar flowed down.

This is a village is Guinobatan, Albay which is engulfed by lahar. According to the news reports, around 300 houses were buried under the armored rocks coming from the Mayon Volcano.

While the entire country is still struggling due to the corona virus pandemic, the world's strongest storm this 2020 caused a lot of trees to topple, many houses were left flattened and hundreds of roofs were also sent whirling through the air when strong rain and catastrophic winds pummeled the Bicol region. Roads and farms were drowned in torrents as flood came rushing.

This is Mr. Salvador, a man from Guinabatan, Albay who lost his 5 year old son. According to reports, he was holding his son when unexpextedly, a rushing flood came and his son was swept away by the strong torrent. His son's body was found by Red Cross' volunteers in Oas, Albay which is 25 kilometers away. When Mr. Salvador saw the child's body, he confirmed that it is indeed his son. His wife and his daughter were also swept away by swollen torrents from the flood and are reported missing up to now.

This is a house from my hometown, a lot of houses like this were also left flattened by super typhoon Rolly. It will take weeks and even months for these people to rebuild their houses and go back to their normal life.

This is a photo taken this afternoon. Previously, my neighbor's house was standing here, but the strong storm swept their house. Unfortunately, it wasn't even a year yet since they built the house and now they have to rebuild it.

Amid the strong winds and rain, village officials in our place rushed in the streets to get a coffin out of the flood. They said that it was a coffin burried about a month ago. And yesterday, while someone's cleaning, a partially decomposing corpse is found one kilometer from my house. Imagine the horror of the residents from our community when they found out about it.

This is a photo of the market area in my town. Unfortunately, the whole town was soaked in the flood. The strong rain and wind also destroyed some burial niche and tombs on a nearby cemetery which caused some corpses to be carried by the flood. Aside from that, a sick old man drowned in the flood as well. Since he is already bed ridden, he wasn't able to get out of his house and evacuate so when the flood came, he drowned and died.

Some roads are still not passable until now because a lot of electricity posts and we're severely damaged and are still lying in the streets. Transmission lines are also cut off which causes a massive brownout in the Bicol region. Just like before, it would probably take weeks or even months for the electricity supply to be fixed. In a nearby town, internet connection and phone receptions are also cut off. Thankfully, we already have a stable internet connection in my town after two days of losing contact from the 'outside world'.

Saturday, a day before super typhoon Rolly, landed, was like any ordinary day. The sun shined the whole day, so many people in our place are not expecting for the typhoon to be as strong as it was. But it so happened that when a super strong typhoon is coming, the sun always shine as if it was it's last. Just like how it was when super typhoon Reming and super Typhoon Yolanda hit the country. If we compare it, both are also deadly and both landed in the month of November. This should serve as a lesson that if the sun shines brightly a day or two before the landfall of a strong typhoon, it should be a warning for people to start preparing for the worst to happen. Pack the important stuffs and evacuate to a safer place and seek shelter.

Who would've expect that a catastrophic storm would come the next day when the sky is as stunning as this?

The resiliency of Filipinos, especially the Bicolanos will be tested again after super typhoon Rolly left with a devastating aftermath. But like the previous storms that hit us, this would surely pass and we will surely be able to endure the devastating aftermath.

Thank you so much for reaching this point of reading this article. I'm not sure if there are already some users who wrote about this topic, but I still want to write about this on my own perspective. After two days of being unable to connect to the internet, I'm glad to finally able to publish an update. - @esciisc 💕

What do do during typhoon? Read this article to know more: Another Typhoon