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Echoing Green Fellows Michael Bengwayan (PINE Tree), Gemma Bulos, and Kevin Lee (A Single Drop for SafeWater) were both in the Philippines last month when Typhoons Ketsana and Parma struck.  The typhoons killed more than 600 people and left a path of destruction damaging homes, businesses, and infrastructure.

We received the following letter from Dr. Michael Bengwayan and are reprinting it here in its entirety:

Kibungan Village,Longlong, La Trinidad, Benguet, Philippines ---Seventy
two dead, and 50 more suspected missing, in just 20 minutes.

I stopped giving blogging updates when my cp rang, it was from Yoshi
Labi, a nurse and friend living near the village. He said the whole mountain on top of the  village  just collapsed. (500 meters from the PINE TREE office).

Cries of "Lord Help Us, Have Mercy" competed with the torrential
rains and howling wind, he said.

I left our flooded home in Betag, texted my wife at the Benguet State University (BSU) guestel that I'm heading for the place. But it was impossible.

The road to Pico was a river some five feet high. Fighting rain, wind

and darkness, I crazily drove via Buyagan road. But it was blocked by

two houses that fell with rescuers frantically saving whom they can ( I later found out my friends and Japan Karate Association instructors died here, Ed Dulnuan and Rex Mang-oy,  pushing a baby out before the whole house crushed them).

I tried the swampy area of the town which had a narrow road leading to the village but it became a lake.

At the first light of day, we headed out and  forced our way through the

treacherous waters of Pico road. Upon reaching Puguis Elementary School, my heart sank, rows of dead bodies met us. Women, men, children. I was so devastated,angry and desperate inside I wanted to yell.
 

Why? why? why?

The wind howled and more rain battered us in response.

The sight is something you would not want to see. Where houses stood,

debris and mud were all that remained.

I could not see the families I used to wave to, the children who

shouted at me and said 'hello po". Gone wete the families I used to

chat with when coming from my house.
 

Kibungan Village is special to me. I trained people here, gave them

piglets, rabbits and helped them plant Caliandra seedlings on their

backyards.

I know the people. I knew the dead.

I cried when I saw Mrs. Anablon's children covered with flimsy

blankets. I heart melted when I saw the battered bodies of Mrs. Lopez 

and her three kids. Fearing what I feared, I walked around the school open gym, noting most of the  dead were someone I knew personally.
 

The rescuers worked against time. Few were saved  Many died. Others died of their injuries because they could not be brought to the hospital which was only 2 miles away but was separated by water. There was not a single boat.

I left the scene and hurried to Benguet General Hospitalmorgue. Corpses littered the place. My guts went taut and my knees buckled when I saw my friends Ed and Rex.

Many of the corpses could not identified because there were no relatives. Those with relatives had their dead lined up for embalming.

Those without relatives sprawled on the cold hospital cement floor.

But grief cannot overcome what little that can be done. Frantically, I

called some of the environmental volunteers I trained. Six responded.

We worked, preparing food and brought it out to the evacuees. We fed

400 on the first meal.

Hopes began to flicker. More dead were coming in rather than survivors.

I watched how rescuers tried to dig but equally fearful they will be

swept by the onrushing mud. When one rescuer digs a spadeful of dirtl, mud immediately replaced what he dug. It seemed an exercise of futility.

Yet, they dug and dug, those worn out were replaced by those who rested

and had a bite of cold meal.

The kindness of strangers was evident. Food, water and other

necessities kept on coming. Fresh volunteers attacked the mud. Over

and over again.

When a body was dug, there was a feeling of empty elation. Because

everybody was hoping for a survivor.
 

When what was dug was unfortunately dead, numbed silence, curses and cries punctured the air. The whole place was a sudden cemetery.
 

I left, tired and spent. My family was safe. I don't know about my

house, office, dogs, pigs, chicken and plants in Longlong. There was no

way I could get to them. Landslides covered all roads.

It did not matter for the moment. Thinking of all the dead, I am
grateful like many others to be alive.

I sighed a prayer for the dead.

 

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