<p><img class=" alignleft size-full wp-image-94" src="https://media.pri.org/s3fs-public/haiyan-typhoon-thumb.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="320" style="line-height: 1.538em;width: 251px;height: 167px;margin: 5px;float: left" />Typhoon Haiyan, known locally as Typhoon Yolanda, made landfall in the central Philippines on Nov. 7, 2013. It was among the strongest storms in recorded history, with winds up to 199 miles per hour. The United Nations estimates that more than 11 million are affected and close to 700,000 are homeless. While many municipalities have yet to report, Philippines President Benigno Aquino estimated the death toll at 2,500 less than a week after the storm hit. Food and water are in short supply in the hardest hit areas and, looking ahead, providing relief and rebuilding in remote areas is a challenge.</p>
Typhoon Haiyan caused more damage than the Haiti earthquake or the Indonesian tsunami, displacing 4.1 million people and killing more than 6,300 people in the Philippines. Now a year later, there’s still plenty of work to do for the government and international aid agencies.
In the Philippines, sari-sari stores serve as neighborhood anchors —a combination of convenience store and stand-up pub. Now, nearly two months after the typhoon, Filipinos are trying to revive these small, but important shops.
What’s a bunch of trees worth? Well, if they save your town from the storm surge of a huge typhoon, you might say they’re invaluable. That’s what happened to the community of General MacArthur, in the Philippines, and its fate holds a lesson for coastal communities around the world.
AP photojournalist David Guttenfelder has been covering the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan and documenting the disaster via his Instagram feed. Some of his images, particularly of a newborn baby being kept alive by her parents hand-pumping oxygen into her lungs, are haunting.
The Vergera family had 10 people before the storm. Now, there are three. They live on one meal a day amidst the debris, barricaded from thieves at night. But leaving is out of the question, at least for now.