Typhoon Ondoy (internationally known as Ketsana) hit Metro Manila and surrounding provinces on 26 September 2009. The typhoon that left cities submerged in muddy water for months, claimed almost 300 lives and made tens of thousands of families homeless.

“I never want anything like that to happen again,” says Reynaldo Timoteo, a corn vendor for 28 years with seven children, who lived beside the Laguna Lake, the third largest inland body of water in Southeast Asia. Surrounded by Metro Manila and provinces of Rizal and Laguna, the lake overflowed due to Ondoy’s torrential rain.

Together with other humanitarian organizations, IOM and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), supported by the European Commission through its Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO), stepped in to help make life in evacuation centers bearable.

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One Year on: Some Flood Victims Still Struggle to Rebuild Their Lives

“It was very crowded and we only survived through donations, but we knew that we could count on each other. We were lucky that many sent food, hygiene kits, cooking materials, and other basic things. IOM made sure that we had a clean water supply, bathrooms, and a cooking area in the evacuation center. We were also able to prevent diseases with the help of their medical team,” says Genoveva Alpas, a 50-year-old laundry woman who is the sole source of support for her three children and five grandchildren.

For the past year, IOM had been helping people affected by the typhoon to rebuild their homes by providing construction materials. Reynaldo, Genoveva and many other typhoon victims have returned to their land and rebuilt their houses. They are also hoping to be able to generate income through IOM’s livelihood projects.

Edmundo Orcajada, a fisherman and grandfather of five, leads an association seeking the relocation of those who still live in danger zones. “We would really like to leave our lakeside houses, but we don’t have anywhere to go. We are also concerned about our livelihoods, since we have to fish every day to feed our families,” he says.

IOM, working in partnership with various local government offices, provided him with a shelter repair kit and construction materials to help him to repair his damaged house. Other families received similar help as a temporary shelter solution.

“Families here are aware that in the event of another storm, they will have to gather their belongings and move to a private lot identified as an evacuation center for the community,” says Edmundo.

With funding support from ECHO, IOM is currently building temporary shelters to help families living in damaged houses to move from high-risk areas to safer transitional sites. Some of these families are also receiving a livelihood start-up package to retrain them or improve their skills to allow them to generate income and support their families.

It has been a year of recovery for many. But for those who still have no house or livelihood to return to, it is still only the beginning.

“The typhoon season is here again and the most vulnerable people are those who are still recovering from Ondoy. We need to help them to be better prepared in the event of another major disaster. To do that we – IOM and ECHO – have to put them back on their feet both economically and in terms of safe shelter,” says IOM Typhoon Emergency Response project manager Dave Bercasio.