I believe I have to take a pause for this and ask for your help. The image of this photo, shared by blogger and twitter Mindanaoan, of a father cradling his muddied, dead daughter just gripped my heart last night that it was a wonder I was able to sleep at all.

I grew up in Davao and as far back as I remember, we haven’t experienced such strong a typhoon in our area. We’ve always had this thought that our mountains will shelter us from the typhoon. It could be that the people were thinking of this same thought hence they were fully unprepared with nature’s onslaught.

At the time of writing, more than 520 people are confirmed dead. Hubby said, it gave him the same creeps and goosebumps he felt back in March after the big Tohoku earthquake when we lay scared in bed (scared because of the continuous aftershock tremors) whilst listening to the radio broadcast about 700 bodies being washed to the shore akin to driftwood except that they led lives before and loved and laughed and cried and had dreams.

For parties who are interested to help the victims of typhoon Sendong in Mindanao and make donations, please visit the following links:

Donate to Red Cross Phillipines now

Donate to World Vision org now

And as pointed out by Mindanaoan, to those who intend to donate instant noodles and similar instant food, please try to give something else that doesn’t require much water. Water is terribly precious in the affected area now.