MANILA — Some Tacloban residents are still living near coastal communities that have been marked as "danger zones" a decade after Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) left thousands dead and millions homeless, Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez said Wednesday.
Romualdez told ANC they are still working to move the remaining residents from the danger zones to safer spaces.
He said they have cleared about 70 percent of the danger zones and transferred around 40,000 families to the north of the city, which he noted is a "very safe" area.
'INCOMPLETE, SUBSTANDARD'
During Yolanda’s devastation in 2013, coastal houses and buildings thought safe enough to be used as evacuation centers on Leyte and Samar islands were swamped by storm surges up to five meters high.
About 6,300 people were killed, and a decade later more than a thousand are still missing. Over four million people were left homeless.
Romualdez said around 18,000 houses were built to relocate Yolanda-hit residents, but up to 5,000 units needed to be repaired.
"[A]lmost half of the houses that were built in 2013-2016 — most of them, actually — were incomplete and substandard," he said.
"What happened is they end up in a case in court and nothing happens."
He said Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development Secretary Jose "Jerry" Acuzar vowed P100 million in funding for the repairs, which would arrive "in the next few days."
—with a report from Agence France-Presse