Rehabilitation of typhoon victims in the Philippines.

Includes references

The Philippines suffer from the disastrous effects of typhoons every year. Experience has demonstrated that most losses are due to inadequate shelters. The Department of Social Welfare and Development, the welfare arm of the government, is responsible for emergency shelter assistance to the disaster victims especially those whose houses have been totally destroyed. The department has spearheaded a program designed to assist the rehabilitation of typhoon victims in selected pilot regions of the country through the construction of typhoon resistant core shelter units. The units are being built under self-help basis pooling labor resources of the beneficiaries and utilising indigenous materials under the supervision of trained foremen ensuring that standards are maintained. Modular design of the unit will facilitate its future upgrading and further extensions as the family's socio-economic conditions improve. Behavior of the units built since 1988 until so far in several typhoons has been very encouraging. This paper describes the above aspects