Joyful reunions and despair after 'Ondoy'
Agence France-Presse | 10/04/2009 4:30 PM
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MANILA - Rojanie Asuncion launched appeals on television, posted notes in evacuation centers and trudged through mud in a frantic search to find her mother after their home was washed away in the Philippine floods.
It was a three-day hunt in which she admitted to almost giving up her 69-year-old mom for dead, but ended with the ultimate reward.
"We are so happy that we are all still together after the flood... there were times I thought I would never be able to find her," said Asuncion, 37.
Asuncion's mother, Flora Geronimo, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, went missing on September 26 amid the floods that swamped 80 percent of Manila, killing nearly 300 people.
Amid the chaos and frantic efforts to flee their home as the flooding rose, Geronimo went missing.
Asuncion and a team of family and friends immediately fanned out across the disaster zone, trudging through mud, climbing over debris and checking mud-streaked faces of survivors.
They also sent out urgent appeals on television and radio stations, and posted pictures of Geronimo in hundreds of evacuation centers where over half a million people were jostling for dry space.
Asuncion said they eventually found her mother at an evacuation center on the other side of the city.
"Some good soul called the numbers we posted after seeing our appeal on television," Asuncion said. "They said a woman who looked like my mother was found with no other apparent relative in the area."
Because of her mother's mental condition, she was unable to tell rescuers her name, where she was from and how she got to the centre.
With emergency services and relief efforts completely overwhelmed, people with missing relatives from the floods have had little government assistance in trying to find the lost.
And while the official tally says there are only about 40 people missing, survivors say many more remain unaccounted for and they have little means to do anything to find them.
Amid the government vacuum, radio, television, volunteers and the Internet have been vital to those searching for their missing loved ones.
While Asuncion can thank her television appeal for finding her mother, social media websites have also allowed users to create online bulletin boards where people can post messages including those still missing.
But fisherman Danny Velasco, 40, had no way to search for missing four-year-old son Daniel, as he sought shelter at a gymnasium that had been turned into a shelter for flood survivors in a riverside Manila district.
He could not leave the three white coffins bearing the remains of his wife, Rosalia, and their two other children, Krisa Mae and Dennis, who all perished in the flood.
"I have no one to help me take care of my family," he said. "I don't know how to begin looking for my other son."
From one of the riverside shanty towns in eastern Manila, Velasco had no big network of family and friends to draw on, could not use the Internet and no chance of launching a television appeal.
Velasco said he was away at work when the water claimed their home, but was reassured when his wife sent him a mobile phone message that said she was taking the children to safety.
"That was the last I heard from them, until my neighbor called and said they were among those who died," Velasco said. "I am praying that my son is still alive. I am not losing hope."
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