In response to so many of you who are concerned about our brothers and sisters and relatives in the Philippines in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan, I have the following to report that is about as accurate as we can get at this time. 

Please keep in mind that as information becomes available, the situation will change. I am relying on information that has been given to me by a brother who visits the Philippine branch office in Quezon City on a daily basis. According to him, the branch has issued a report of 26 confirmed dead. All of them had sought shelter in a Kingdom Hall in Tacloban, and were killed when the storm surge swept the building away.

Many more are missing and a thorough search is being conducted to locate survivors and victims. The primary area of death and destruction stretches along a path from east to west in the middle of the country in the Central Visayas from Leyte province where the storm first made landfall to Iloilo in the west, then to Palawan a couple of hundred miles in the South China Sea. 

To give you some perspective, the Philippines is about the size of California and similarly is long from north to south. If the storm had hit California, it would have entered at Death Valley in the east and traveled westward through Bakersfield and exited near Morro Bay. Angeles would be equivalent to just north of Sacramento, Manila at San Francisco, GenSan at San Diego and Tacloban just west of Las Vegas.

Cebu Island and Cebu City also suffered a lot of damage, destruction, deaths and injuries, but reports are incomplete since the primary focus of attention has been Tacloban, Leyte Province. We do not have any reports from Iloilo or any other places yet. In all of the Central Visayas, there is no electricity, little or no cell phone service, looting has stripped the areas of food and gasoline and martial law is in effect. 

As soon as I hear anything further, I will let you all know. The official death toll as of 8 am EST today was over 1700. It is expected to top 10,000. Many JWs could be among that number since not everyone has been accounted for and the search continues.

Many of you have asked about Jona’s family. Her parents live in General Santos City (commonly called GenSan) in the far southern end of the country on Mindanao Island. They experienced a lot of rain and tropical force winds, but they are fine and have no damage. The rest of her family, and where we lived while I was there is in Angeles City, 60 miles north of Manila on Luzon Island. Being protected in a central valley and surrounded by mountains, they had only tropical force winds and lots of rain and some minor flooding, which is considered normal for the area. Everyone there is fine. 

I am continuing to attempt to get reports from other parts of the country. Please keep everyone in the affected area in your prayers.”