Two years on, Haiyan survivors still to face their biggest ordeal since the storm

Mariaflor Terasa was in Manila, Philippines to have a tumor removed from her right breast when Typhoon Haiyan hit her hometown in Tacloban, Leyte. Without her family, she left her home in the care of her nephew. When she came back, everything was gone — including her nephew and her small house.

At 62 years old, she now lives with her dog in a 12-by-16-foot house made of thin plywood, poured concrete and reinforced tin roof provided by HelpAge International, one of dozens of humanitarian groups that flocked to the typhoon-hit areas to provide over $1 billion in assistance to the 14 million people affected from day one.

Smiling at the camera while tending to a small store she was able to erect, Terasa seemed at home in her new house, although she acknowledged she still goes back to the bare land where her old house used to stand just a hundred meters away. She said a lot of changes have been made for the better since Haiyan, but she fears these will slide away once organizations start pulling out their activities according to their usual three-year timeline.