Ships Yolanda Tossed to Dry Land

These are just some of them actually, as there had been many. But it is already more than 9 months after super typhoon Yolanda(Haiyan) and they're still here!

This one named M/V Eva Jocelyn really made a very high climb up from the normal sea water level. Its nose now even touches the main road that trucks and buses must avoid it! It is a big and heavy metal thing in the first place, so even a heavy truck will probably easily crumble to pieces on impact hehe! Thus, better to avoid her, especially at night!

M/V Eva Jocelyn is the most prominent amongst these big ships since she is the one that went a bit too high and far from the sea. I imagine that would have been some 400 or so meters from the water's edge, and the height is unbelievable! No no no no, I do not wish to discuss here how many houses this ship crushed or how many lives were wasted here.Look at the red arrow on top of the picture. It is not a street lamp. It is that of the ship! then look at the neon-green line on the lower left portion of the picture. That is the supposedly edge of the highway (after the shoulder).

This is another shot of Eva Jocelyn's starboard:
Can you see the two red arrows I drew? The smaller one on the left points to a 3-storey (pink) house whose frontage (and porch/veranda) this ship partly scraped away. Oh, the bigger red arrow points to a house that a resident has already erected (its been almost a year since doomsday)! People living here were/are 'informal settlers', but some of them do have the means. Ayan, they're already "re-building" despite this big thing being still around haha!

As I moved around these ruins, me and my companions and the locals who went with us were like 'dreaming' on what should be the best thing to do with this humongous thing. We were unanimous that it should be made into some kind of a memorial about the tragedy. I actually thought "why not make this thing into a restaurant since it is soooo big and wide". I can't imagine they'd attempt to push it back into the water especially that houses have started to sprout behind it hehe!

Let us stop the mourning. Its actually too tiring and drains every bit of energy from you and me, just by feeling sad about what happened! Okay, smile! That is the common expression of all these "victims" you'll encounter in the area. Am not joking. These people "I guess" do not anymore have tears to shed from their eyes, so they just smilingly go about and try to move on. Of course, back to how they have been... "squatters". But keep smiling with them, they tell me they all have been given slots at the various relocation housing sites somewhere north of the city. But I do wonder why they are rebuilding their houses when they're supposed to be relocated. Hmm, I guess those houses are taking too long to materialize!

Okay, just for you my readers to get more glimpses, I went to another area in this place called Anibong District (not far from M/V Eva Jocelyn actually), and here are more ships washed high up ashore. Hah, if you go there now and listen to the stories... your legs will tremble and your eyes will dry up of tears. But let me describe this picture below.1, 2, 3 and 4 are all steel cargo ships - the 4th one you can only see the ship's bridge (captain's module). All these big boats of thick steel are being "chop-chopped" - perhaps so the owners can salvage some monetary value from them. But how do you chop-chop these humongous steel things? Ah, look at the red circle. Those are supposedly the things they use to cut these giants into pieces. Those are as high as my waist and about the diameter of a saucer. The people I talked-to tell me those things are like the welding rods, only they are enormously big. MyGaaash! Expensive even if you just want to sell these things as scrap :D


Oh well, Yolanda, a very sad event indeed, but everyone around this place are all smiles - especially the kids - as they animatedly recount what happened. I guess that is what we call Filipino Resilience. Their smiles, and making fun of what happened, laughing at everything, probably helps them to recover.


Warning: if you are the "weak at heart" or one with a very "shallow tearwell", and esp if you are the 'wailing type", just don't visit this place just yet. Being sad about all these things might just keep on reminding them about their unbelievable misfortune/s. They have to rise and shine. So don't go there if all you will do is spread grief. They (and we) have to stand up and move on... I guess hehe!

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