Nature’s wrath man’s folly

The death and destruction in the wake of four successive typhoons and tropical depressions that ravaged the country this Advent season illustrate yet again the most lethal combination of Nature’s might and fury, and Man’s negligence and utter folly.

Late season storms usually pack a mighty punch, and having four of them roll in from the Pacific in succession–Unding, Violeta, Winnie and Yoyong–was bound to be something else. As rain came down in torrents and wind whipped everything in its path, terror came tumbling down the mountain slopes in the form of felled logs, debris, loose earth and rocks, unhindered and unstoppable. The photos on this spread and the next page, taken by STAR photographers who braved the dangers in getting to affected areas, show in poignant images the physical destruction and human tragedy that took the lives of over 1,400.

"Decades of illegal logging" was blamed for the denuded mountains, as was slash-and-burn farming and the absence of reforestation. A total log ban has been imposed, and supposed illegal loggers were finally named; there will surely be finger pointing and investigations yet again, but the question that must be answered is: What are we really going to do to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again?