CRWRC’s International Disaster Response Team and Asia staff are responding to Tropical Storm Saola in the Philippines this week, working to provide emergency food, clean-up kits, and mudding-out services to some of the 580,000 people who were evacuated from the knee- to neck-high floodwater in the last ten days. Forty-nine residents have been reported killed in flooding and mudslides.

CRWRC partner Philippine Relief and Development Services (PHILRADS) is the relief and development agency of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches. The organization has already distributed emergency food packets to 1,000 families in evacuation centers in eight areas of Manila. Through CRWRC and the Integral Alliance, 2,000 additional families in Metro Manila and the provinces of of Bulacan and Pampanga will receive immediate food aid and clean-up assistance as well as sleeping mats, blankets and hygiene supplies.

Through Philippine partner PHILRADS, and with members of the Integral Alliance, CRWRC will provide $30,000 in emergency food distributions, household cleaning supplies, and pressure washing services to families whose homes were damaged by severe flooding. The work is being coordinated with government agencies and local churches whose volunteers are packaging and delivering goods to families in evacuation centers who are now returning to homes that are uninhabitable and in need of massive clean-up.

The three-day deluge started on Monday and directly followed two full weeks of rain induced by Typhoon Haikui. Saola dropped an additional foot of water on Metro Manila and 16 surrounding townships. Humanitarian staff on the ground reported on Tuesday that up to 70% of Manila was underwater.

Tropical Storm Saola is the worst severe weather system to hit the Philippines since Typhoon Ketsana in 2009. CRWRC responded to Ketsana with more than $250,000 in emergency food supplies, home rebuilding, and livelihood restoration. Ketsana was the worst storm in the Philippines since the 1970s.