KASIBU, Nueva Vizcaya—While Typhoon Lando battered this part of Northern Luzon over the weekend, the emergency response team of OceanaGold (Philippines) prepared equipment and vehicles barely two years after rendering a rescue and retrieval operations at the earthquake and typhoon-ravaged Visayas. The team is now up in “Blue Alert” against the devastating tropical storm directly hitting Nueva Vizcaya.
The Australian firm operating the Didipio Mine here has returned recently from another mission in the Visayas. The mining company announced the other day that together with Gawad Kalinga, Delta Earthmoving Inc., and Philippine Mine Safety and Environment Association, it recently turned over 20 housing units for those left homeless by Supertyphoon Yolanda at Barangay Ticad, Bantayan Island in Cebu Province.
The super typhoon ravaged the country, affecting 1,473,251 families with 6,300 recorded casualties. It was the most devastating typhoon ever recorded inflicting severe damage on November 8, 2013, to both lives and property in the country. “Yolanda was certainly a very sad event. We are concerned for the people in the Philippines and sympathize with their loss. We are doing everything we can to help,” OceanaGold Managing Director and CEO Mick Wilkes said in a statement.
Bantayan Island was among those worst-hit in the country since Yolanda directly landed in the northern part of Cebu City in the Central Visayas, leaving 30 percent of the island’s residents homeless.
By virtue of a memorandum of agreement signed last year, the group committed to donate a housing project in the island.
“Despite encountering a number of challenges like the remoteness of the island and availability of materials, we have successfully completed the houses and handed them over to 20 beneficiary families,” said OGPI Country Director Bradley Norman.
With contributions from their respective employees, OceanaGold and DELTA jointly raised the amount of P3.3 million for the construction of the housing units while Gawad Kalinga and PMSEA assisted in the project-management monitoring.