Six peo­ple have been killed and more than 380,000 evac­u­at­ed as Super Typhoon Nock-Ten (local­ly Nina) cut a path through the Philip­pines, with the Ham Radio Emer­gency (HERO) net acti­vat­ed in advance.

The Christ­mas Day dis­as­ter cut pow­er to five provinces, downed trees, caused wide­spread dam­age, and dimmed the fes­tive occa­sion in Asi­a’s largest Catholic nation.

The slow mov­ing typhoon made land­fall sev­en times from Sun­day evening until noon on Mon­day. Jojo Vicen­cio DU1VHY says: “A tru­ly com­mend­able job was done by many radio ama­teurs who not only gave up their tra­di­tion­al Christ­mas activ­i­ties, but some had to stop trans­mis­sions because they were in the storm path.”

In the Catan­d­u­anes were Sider DU4SLT of ARCC, Dex­ter DU4DXT and Joseph DV4PGS Joseph of ISLACOM, with oth­er groups in Bicol and Samar-Leyte. All were on HF, and VHF com­mu­ni­ca­tions were also active.

Jojo DU1VHY says as the typhoon first made land­fall some net­work sta­tions were off air, with weath­er reports for Catan­d­u­anes of sus­tained winds in excess of the 200kph mark.

Then grad­u­al­ly sta­tions came back giv­ing reports of the ter­ri­ble dam­age that had occurred in their areas. As the typhoon swept along the South­ern Taga­long areas it made land­fall sev­er­al times. Man­nduque was bad­ly hit too, as report­ed by HERO.

Jojo DU1VHY says: “It cre­at­ed a large swath of destruc­tion and debris – uproot­ed and fall­en trees and posts, land­slides, impass­able roads and oth­er dam­age. Even our own HEROs were not spared.”

The reports were quick­ly gath­ered by the net­work and relayed to author­i­ties, some tuned in to the HERO net themselves.

“The HEROs per­sist­ed. To get back on air, pri­mar­i­ly to update the net­work of hams is tru­ly admirable,” he said.

One such sta­tion when asked for his imme­di­ate needs after the typhoon had passed, replied sim­ply that he was cop­ing OK, and then gave accounts of what had happened.

Jojo DU1VHY says: “It has now become a real­i­ty that our emer­gency call­ing fre­quen­cy is the most lis­tened to dur­ing dis­as­ter. Gov­ern­ment oper­a­tors lis­tened in, and some even revealed their presence.

“Armed Forces sta­tion Peace­mak­er in Catar­man, for exam­ple, broke into the fre­quen­cy look­ing for a coun­ter­part sta­tion also in North­ern Samar.
“An NDRRMC (Nation­al Dis­as­ter Risk Reduc­tion and Man­age­ment Coun­cil) vol­un­teer oper­a­tor made his pres­ence felt say­ing they were also monitoring.”

The Office of Civ­il Defence (OCD) has two sta­tions that con­stant­ly vis­it­ed the HERO net. From Leyte to Que­zon the HERO com­mu­ni­ca­tions on 7.095 MHz nev­er faltered.

Jojo DU1VHY says: “Thank you to all those who will­ing­ly part­ed with their Christ­mas time to be of ser­vice to oth­ers. We all must con­tin­ue to hone our com­mu­ni­ca­tions skills to meet and be pre­pared for the future.”

About 20 typhoons and storms lash the Philip­pines each year, with emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions to the com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er agen­cies pro­vid­ed by the HERO network.

- Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.