Ship on the hill

Ship on the hill

 

[시사타임즈 = 이철원 시사타임즈 회장] There is a saying, “If there are many sailors, boats go to the mountains.” Although the meaning is different from the proverb, in Tacloban, Philippines, you could see the ships going up on the hill and in the middle of the village. On December 27, 2013, ARAW troops departed by plane from Seoul Airport in Seongnam and arrived at Cebu Airport. At the airport, Cho Bong-hwan, president of the Cebu Korean Association, and many Koreans came to welcome us. After the welcome ceremony, we moved to Cebu Port by bus, transferred to 2 LST ships, and departed for Tacloban. LST loaded equipment a week ago, left Busan Port, arrived at Cebu Port, and was waiting.

    

 

I suffered from seasickness and couldn't sleep all night in excitement. The next morning, the LST entered the port of Tacloban with the rising sun turned against its back. All the soldiers went up to the deck with anticipation and curiosity about the future deployment life and looked at the Taclobanhang area.

 

There were huge chunks of cast iron that were about 100 meters long and three or four stories high, so that you could think, 'How do such large ships climb on top of a hill?' Container merchant ships anchored near the port were swept up a hill in the middle of the village due to a tsunami that came along with the typhoon. There seemed to be no scene that could better explain the power of Typhoon Haiyan, which is said to come only once in 100 years. Here in Leyte, Philippines, where we need to sweat and recover the damage and sow the seeds of hope, appeared before us, revealing the bare skin of the typhoon.

 

There were 10 ships that went up to land around the port of Tacloban, and there was no equipment to bring them back to the sea, and there was no means to dismantle them and move them from land, so they were left unattended. These ships became the material to vividly show the damage of typhoons to the guests who came to the landing support ship where we lived for a month, and they became good field training materials for the soldiers.

 

It was because the soldiers could feel the power of natural disasters every day by seeing how many people are suffering here, and the ships leaning on the hills and the poor people living precariously below them. The place where the ships were mounted on the hill was where the poor lived in Tacloban. I still can't forget the eyes of the children who were intoxicated with bonds to forget their hunger after the typhoon, and the faces of the children who waved and greeted us in worn-out clothes.

 

▲A ship entering the village due to a tsunami. ⒞시사타임즈

▲A ship entering the village due to a tsunami. ⒞시사타임즈

▲A ship entering the village due to a tsunami. ⒞시사타임즈

 글 : 이철원 시사타임즈 회장

 

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