If you have seen a movie about a world devastated by a nuclear war, you have a clear picture of Albay province, the desolation caused by typhoon Reming and the horrible flood. In one particular movie, gangs of men, survivors from the war, lived in damaged buildings, fully armed, ready to fight other survivors for food and territory. All were in rage.
Only one thought had occupied their mind-survival, nothing else. Even the simplest luxury of the couple in love - holding hands and watching the sunset - they have little time for this. People were not interested in such a civilized undertaking. I have seen several of such a movie in the scenes have been seared into my mind, probably because of the horror in the aftermath of the war.
The horror appears to have taken place right in Albay’s worst–hit areas. One is Busay, a short distance from Cagsawa ruins in Daraga, Albay. Stone houses have vanished swept by rampaging floodwaters with their occupants and neighbors who took shelter there.
The morning after the “deluge”, a government official aboard a plane surveying the devastation said he could not hold back tears on seeing lifeless bodies of people scattered everywhere.
Thousands died, according to estimates, swallowed by rivers of mud and boulders. While others were found where the waters had taken them, the rest were not, probably buried under tons of sand.
Barangay Busay has suffered a terrible fate. So are the other communities hit by walls of mud and boulders. Barangay Maipon in Guinobatan has vanished completely and all those living there. Not a trace of the inhabitants can be seen.
If you have not seen the war movie or the Albay devastation, you won’t feel the terrible agony of the people who have lost everything. For us in Albay, the tragedy is very real. We can feel blood rushing into our faces on seeing a mother or a father grieving over a dead son sprawled on a sandy riceland.
In places where people are believed to have been buried by the flood, the stench of death is overpowering. You got the feeling the victims are still with you, sharing your world, refusing to leave. People who meet untimely death stay with us for quite a time, paranormal experts have said.
One can easily see the trauma on people’s faces. When the PAG-ASA weather bureau said this week that another typhoon was brewing, many turned ghastly pale, their hands trembling. They shudder when the sky darkens and heavy rains threaten.
Those in the evacuation centers do not want to go back to their barrios even when their houses are intact. The sounds of onrushing water terrify them.
I am not a stranger to typhoons, having lived for ten years in typhoon-prone Catanduanes. Described by a local writer as the land of the howling winds, the province easily attracts the fiercest cyclones several times a year.
But “Reming”, with its 265-kph center winds, was different. At about 12 noon of that fateful Thursday, the day of the typhoon, the world appeared being ripped apart by an evil hand. It looked like the planet was bursting with thunder and flood waters.
It was probably at this time of the day when the mountains moved and demolished whole communities killing thousands in Albay’s worst disaster.
The terror of the flood has ended but those who have gone through the experience won’t easily forget the day the world almost ended.
