10 years after ‘Yolanda’, Tacloban rises from ruins

WIDOW Agatha Ando has learned to laugh again in the decade after Super Typhoon “Yolanda” (“Haiyan”) smashed into the central Philippines, killing more than 6,000 people and leaving millions homeless.

Fierce winds tore apart houses and toppled trees as tsunami-like waves whipped up by the storm obliterated mostly poor coastal communities on Nov. 8, 2013.

Ando’s husband and three of her siblings refused to leave their homes in Tacloban City, which were less than 100 meters (109 yards) from the sea, and died along with four children when water and debris crashed over them.