Super Typhoon Rai destroyed the popular tourist island, that was about to welcome visitors again after domestic Covid restrictions eased
A cyclist travels past destroyed vegetation and houses along a road in Dapa town, Siargao island on December 21, 2021, days after super Typhoon Rai devastated the island.A cyclist travels past destroyed vegetation and houses along a road in Dapa town, Siargao island on December 21, 2021, days after super Typhoon Rai devastated the island.
The widespread destruction left the island – voted the best in Asia by Condé Nast Traveler readers this year – unrecognisable.“The day after the storm, we went outside and we were like ‘wow, this is Siargao now, it’s no more’,” Claudine Mendoza, 27, a sous chef at a beachfront resort, told AFP. Pandemic travel restrictions decimated visitor numbers to the island in the past two years, leaving many resorts, cafes, souvenir shops and tour guides struggling to survive.Photograph: Ferdinandh Cabrera/AFP/Getty Images
“We think we have the capacity to rebuild but there’s no point in rebuilding if it’s just us – we need the whole of Siargao to rebuild.”With electricity across the island knocked out, there is no signal or internet, which has hampered efforts of disaster agencies to assess the full extent of the death and destruction caused by the storm.
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