Not a surprise

Dan Gartland has a Slate article of news extracts about the recent typhoon in the Phillipines:

Reuters: "Desperation gripped the Philippines, devastated by Typhoon Haiyan as looting turned deadly and survivors panicked over shortages of food, water, and medicine, some digging up underground water pipes and smashing them open. Five days after one of the strongest storms ever recorded slammed into cities and towns in the central Philippines, anger and frustration boiled over as essential supplies dwindled. Some survivors scrawled signs reading: 'Help us'."
The Washington Post: "Government officials say that more than a thousand armed forces personnel have been deployed nationwide to restore order and, in Tacloban, local police have imposed an evening curfew. But roughly ten miles outside of the city, a mob of looters ransacked a government building storing packages of rice, Rex Estoperez, a spokesman for the National Food Authority, said in a telephone interview. The incident illustrated much about the hasty relief efforts, Estoperez said. The packages of rice were not piled securely, and when the looters entered the building, the rice bags collapsed, knocking over a wall and killing eight of the looters. The others in the mob walked out with whatever they could grab, including thousands of sacks of rice, which they are trying to resell locally for a thousand pesos ($45) per sack."
The New York Times: "International relief groups said they were rapidly escalating their response to the storm in Tacloban and elsewhere. Doctors Without Borders, the Paris-based medical provider, said its teams had traveled by car, boat, plane, and helicopter to some of the more outlying areas of northern Cebu Island, eastern Samar Island, Panay Island, and western Leyte Province, places neither the Philippines government nor other agencies had been able to reach. The teams found desperation, the group said in a statement. The village of Guiuan in Samar was flattened, and half of Roxas City on Panay was destroyed. 'Access is extremely difficult and is preventing people from receiving help,' said Natasha Reyes, the group’s emergency coordinator in the Philippines."

Joshua Keating has another Slate article, asking the obvious question: Why Does the Philippines Have So Many Terrible Disasters?

Geography has not been kind to the Philippines. With six to nine typhoons making landfall every year, almost nine hundred earthquakes annually— including the one that hit the island of Bohol, killing more than two hundred people just last month—and more than twenty active volcanoes, it gets more than its share of natural disasters.
Disasters in the Philippines are also particularly deadly. Just two years ago, Tropical Storm Washi killed over a thousand people. The country led the world in disaster mortality in 2012, with more than two thousand people killed. China was second with just eight hundred. The high rate of poverty and the state of the country’s infrastructure also make it particularly vulnerable to the kind of devastation we’re seeing this week.
While the Philippines has earned global attention for its rapid economic growth in recent years, it remains a very poor country with around forty percent of the population living on under two dollars per day. The country’s unemployment rate is high and around a third of its workers are in agriculture, making them particularly vulnerable to severe weather.
A 2005 World Bank report discussed why poverty has exacerbated the Phillipines’ frequent disasters, writing: “Rapid urban growth and lack of tenure, for instance, have forced many to live and work in high-risk areas, such as on the shores of Navotas or flanks of active volcanoes. Families may have little choice but to return to such areas post disaster even when resettlement options are available because of the importance of proximity to place of work.”
The country’s chronic infrastructure problems are another concern. Damaged roads are hampering the relief effort in this disaster as they did after last month’s earthquake. Only twenty percent of the country’s roads are paved, and the World Economic Forum has identified “inadequate supply of infrastructure” as one of the primary obstacles for the country’s economic growth.
Current President Benigno Aquino has made infrastructure development a priority since coming into office in 2010. The government increased spending by 47 percent on the country’s  roads, airports, and public works in the first eight months of this year. The Philippines has also invested heavily to improve flood-resistant construction.
Unfortunately, the relationship between natural disasters and poor infrastructure is mutually reinforcing. The Bohol earthquake caused more than fifty million dollars in damage, largely to roads, flood control facilities, and bridges, exactly the kind of construction that makes future disasters more severe.
The World Bank report noted that “disasters can also contribute to longer-term states of poverty by delaying development of poorer areas. An initial poverty-mapping exercise of the Philippines reports that the results from the rapid appraisal demonstrate the importance of road conditions and distances to “centers of trade” as a determinant of poverty. Yet disasters destroy roads and many, particularly feeder roads, may not be repaired for several years after a disaster.”
In a cruel cycle, poverty and underdevelopment make disasters worse, and disasters make poverty and underdevelopment worse.  

Rico says disasters suck, and disasters in Third World countries really suck...