In an article published at the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the writeup pointed out that the Hong Kong government's recent aid for the Southest Asian country. The Philippines had been the eye of international media after it had experienced two succeeding natural calamities, the second dubbed as one of the worst disasters seen in the world.
HSBC Philippines had donated over USD1 million in aid and had launched a bank-wide donation and relief drive. The local arm of the Hong Kong bank had pledged USD23,000 as well. The banking group had collected over USD60,000 within two days.
KGLI Asia, a private equity firm who also invested in the Philippines, committed USD1 million for relief and community building efforts. KGLI had backed ventures in the Philippines, included Sabah Al-Ahmad Global Gateway Logistics City and the supply chain management 2GO Group. The firm's parent company in Kuwait employs about 140,000 Filipino workers, said SCMP.
On the other hand, the government of Hong Kong donated USD100,000, which said the article was less than one-tenth of the donations made by KGLI and HSBC. The article mentioned that Hong Kong had sour relations with the Philippines after an incident in capital Manila held some of the former's tourists hostage, with several dead. The SCMP article said the state of Hong Kong would not extend the deadline imposed to the Philippine government for the latter to settle claims of the hostage victims.
The typhoon with the name by international weather system Haiyan, or by Philippine weather system Yolanda, was assessed by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) on November 6 as a Category 5-equivalent super typhoon. Unofficially, Haiyan would be the strongest tropical cyclone that made contact with land at 315 kilometers per hour, surpassing the Atlantic Hurricane Camille in 1969 with a record of 305 kilometers per hour. A local official had estimated that around 10,000 people might have died in Tacloban city alone. UN officials also said that around 11 million had been affected and majority had been left homeless. As of November 13, total worth of damages incurred by Haiyan were PHP561.86 million or USD12.8 million in agriculture and PHP199.58 million or USD4.5 million in infrastructure, according to data gathered from the country's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).
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