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http://news.asiaone.com/news/asia/santa-absent-year-typhoon-hit-philippines
Santa absent this year in typhoon-hit Philippines
AFP | Friday, Dec 25, 2015
Photo: AFP
SAN JOSE, Philippines - Wading through knee-deep floods, 12-year-old Joana Yambao pushes her infant sister in a black wash basin along the surface of the filthy water in a typhoon-hit Philippine village where residents have little to celebrate this Christmas.
Under sunny skies, their mother sweeps m&d from the floor of her grocery shop in San Jose, one of scores of villages and towns still submerged and struggling to recover after being battered this month by Typhoon Melor.
The storm killed 45 people and left thousands without food, water or urgent medical care.
"We're just taking in the sights. I doubt Santa Claus will come tonight. The water's too high," Yambao told AFP.
Instead of gathering by the Christmas tree to open gifts and eat a traditional meal of meat, cheese and sweets, hundreds of people in San Jose stood in flood waters with their own wash basins to wait for food aid at the Catholic church.
Residents of the village, home to about 5,000 people, have seen seasonal flooding before, but elderly villagers said it was the first time they had seen it during Christmas.
Other towns in the vast, rice-growing central Luzon plains near Manila also remain submerged and the government says 206,000 people are still either stuck in floods or dependent on government food rations, or both.
There were few signs of Christmas cheer in San Jose.
At Amelia Samblijay's house, six plastic Santa statues hung from the rafters, suspended above murky brown flood waters littered by old shoes, plastic bottles and a dead rat.
Santa absent this year in typhoon-hit Philippines
AFP | Friday, Dec 25, 2015
Photo: AFP
SAN JOSE, Philippines - Wading through knee-deep floods, 12-year-old Joana Yambao pushes her infant sister in a black wash basin along the surface of the filthy water in a typhoon-hit Philippine village where residents have little to celebrate this Christmas.
Under sunny skies, their mother sweeps m&d from the floor of her grocery shop in San Jose, one of scores of villages and towns still submerged and struggling to recover after being battered this month by Typhoon Melor.
The storm killed 45 people and left thousands without food, water or urgent medical care.
"We're just taking in the sights. I doubt Santa Claus will come tonight. The water's too high," Yambao told AFP.
Instead of gathering by the Christmas tree to open gifts and eat a traditional meal of meat, cheese and sweets, hundreds of people in San Jose stood in flood waters with their own wash basins to wait for food aid at the Catholic church.
Residents of the village, home to about 5,000 people, have seen seasonal flooding before, but elderly villagers said it was the first time they had seen it during Christmas.
Other towns in the vast, rice-growing central Luzon plains near Manila also remain submerged and the government says 206,000 people are still either stuck in floods or dependent on government food rations, or both.
There were few signs of Christmas cheer in San Jose.
At Amelia Samblijay's house, six plastic Santa statues hung from the rafters, suspended above murky brown flood waters littered by old shoes, plastic bottles and a dead rat.
