Philippines - As aid flows in to the areas devastated by Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, IOM’s Director General William Lacy Swing has urged the world to support the Philippine people to rebuild and recover.
The Organization has established five operational hubs across the worst affected areas in Leyte and Samar aiming to reach the most urgent cases among the four million people made homeless.
Speaking from Tacloban, on a four-day visit to the Philippines, Ambassador Swing said: “We have a crisis on our hands. There is an overwhelming need to get the most vulnerable – children, pregnant women, the disabled and elderly into safe shelter where they can receive aid.”
Ambassador Swing’s visit to Tacloban, where the highest number of casualties has been reported, followed a visit to Capiz, where preventive evacuation by the authorities saved many lives. However, houses across a broad area of Capiz were damaged or destroyed.
After seeing first-hand the wide scale of destruction caused by the strongest storm in history on 9th November, he expressed his shock and sympathy with the country:  “I have come to offer my profound condolences and support to the people and government of the Philippines in this latest tragedy. This country’s people have suffered too much, too frequently and too long,” he said.
He urged the world to maintain its support for the recovery effort and for international media to keep up the high level of coverage of the tragedy. “We need funds to rebuild and we need people to know about the enormous work being done here - that’s the job of the media. IOM will remain here as long as it takes to help rebuild the homes and communities that were obliterated by the storm,” he added.
There are currently some 400,000 people sheltering in 1,600 evacuation centres in the region. The needs of the displaced include food, water, health care and shelter from the elements. 
IOM and the national government have the role of ensuring that those living in camps are adequately cared for. The Organization has rushed thousands of tents, tarpaulins, blankets and tools to the disaster affected areas.
Rebuilding homes as quickly as possible is a priority for IOM. The tapping of hammers on nails and of bamboo lengths being sawed to make awnings could be heard as Ambassador Swing addressed IOM staff rushed to the area in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
To build a complete and detailed picture of the scale of the disaster and specific needs, IOM has started registering displaced people in Tacloban and surrounding areas using its Displacement Tracking Matrix.  The results will provide crucial information needed by the government and the entire humanitarian community to ensure that the rebuilding is carried out in an efficient, speedy and coordinated way.
The storm cut a wide swathe through the central Philippines and had six landfalls, making aid distribution and recovery extremely complex.
Swing noted that the Philippines was enduring “a triple whammy of disasters.” IOM is still active in Bohol, which was hit by an earthquake in October, and in Zamboanga City, where tens of thousands are still displaced following fighting in September.
For more information please contact
Leonard Doyle
Tel. + 63 917 890 8785
Email: ldoyle@iom.int
or
Joe Lowry
Tel. +66 81 870 8081
Email: jlowry@iom.int
Both are in Tacloban