MANILA: International aid agencies have criticised a Philippine government plan to move homeless survivors of the country’s deadliest typhoon into “cramped” temporary shelters, officials said yesterday.
The issue has disrupted the Super Typhoon Haiyan rehabilitation effort as the government halted further construction of bunkhouses so they could be redesigned, they said.
“There were some concerns that it was too cramped,” President Benigno Aquino’s spokesman Edwin Lacierda told reporters.
Aquino has said it may take the Philippines four years to rebuild from the disaster, much of the destruction wrought by giant waves unleashed by the massive storm that obliterated coastal communities.
Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson said the concerns were aired by members of United Nations agencies and humanitarian organisations working primarily with a “cluster” of government institutions to address Haiyan survivors’ shelter needs.
“They told us the rooms that we made were too small,” Singson said after meeting with the “shelter” cluster on Tuesday. AFP
