MANILA — A month after parts of the Philippines were devastated by successive typhoons, tens of thousands of people remain homeless and more than 150 have been killed by waterborne diseases, officials said.
Relief workers are particularly concerned about children in evacuation camps in towns and cities in the Manila metropolitan area that remain flooded.
Health officials said there was an outbreak of diseases in both evacuation centers and in flooded communities, particularly a bacterial infection called leptospirosis that had afflicted more than 2,000 residents and killed 157 as of Saturday.
Apart from leptospirosis — which is caused by urine from rats and other mammals — dengue fever, malaria, diarrhea, skin rashes and other illnesses are common. Of the 35,000 people in evacuation centers, more than half suffer from some disease, most commonly acute respiratory illness, according to the Department of Health.
Efforts to relocate survivors have had limited impact because of the refusal of some affected residents — many of them slum dwellers whose shanties were destroyed— to be uprooted from their communities. According to the government, more than 1.2 million residents still live in damaged villages in greater Manila, some of them with waist-high floodwater.
Children are particularly vulnerable, according to Diwa Gacosta, a local representative of World Vision. She said that cramped and unsanitary conditions had caused an increase in these diseases. “The impact of the flood to children’s health is really a problem,” Ms. Gacosta said Sunday.
Last week, Save the Children, another nonprofit group, issued an alert about the situation.
“Children in these storm-affected areas face a host of dangers that pose a threat to their very survival,” said Latha Caleb, the director of Save the Children in the Philippines. “It is critical now to address the lack of sanitation systems and clean water that are resulting in widespread illness and disease.”
Although both the government and the private sector are making an effort, the humanitarian crisis seems to be overwhelming, prompting President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to offer prayers last week for those affected by the calamity.
About 70,000 families in the Manila area live in shanties and huts that block waterways, exacerbating problems with drainage and sewer systems. The government no longer allows shanties to be rebuilt along these waterways; the challenge is relocating the residents.
Cities like Pasig, one of the hardest-hit with several neighborhoods still underwater, are under pressure to find ways to house thousands of survivors. Hundreds who sought refuge in a government-owned gymnasium called PhilSports Arena in Pasig were forced to leave without assurances of a viable relocation site.
According to Jon Vincent Marin, a spokesman from Kadamay, a group that advocates for the urban poor, the evacuees were forced to leave after the government stopped giving out food. City officials denied the charge. The evacuees were also given a few hundred pesos, or just a few dollars, on the condition that they leave the gymnasium, Mr. Marin said.
Ms. Arroyo began a program this month called “Back to the Provinces” to encourage people to leave the metropolis. Families are given a small amount to start over in their provinces, where most of Manila’s slum dwellers come from.
Mr. Marin criticized the government’s efforts, saying the relocation sites offer no livelihood opportunities. “Poverty and lack of livelihood are the reasons why these people come to Manila. If the government moves them to another place where they will have nothing to depend on for income, they will be forced to return,” he said.
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