On the island of Dinagat, not a single house is left standing.
"Everything is gone, including my house," Jay Latzia tells CNN. "The roof and all the timber we used to build it is gone."
Super typhoon Rai[/b] - or "Odette," as it was named in the region - swept the Philippines in its path on Dec. 16. It was the strongest typhoon of the year and claimed the lives of nearly 400 people. Hundreds of thousands more were displaced.
The country is familiar with typhoons, butclimate change has intensified the phenomenon, making storms unpredictable and even more extreme. The biggest victims of the situation are, as usual, the poor.
Families like that of Lazia have lost everything. And now they are forced to achieve the impossible: to rebuild their homes without even food or drinking water.
"We thought we were safe because we had tied up our houses. We thought that would be enough to keep them from collapsing. We had put weight on the roof to keep it from flying off. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough," says the 27-year-old father."
Picture of utter devastation
According to official figures, 1,147 people were injured by the passage of the hurricane, which raced at speeds of 168 miles per hour, while 83 people are still missing. More than half a million people have taken shelter in evacuation centres or are staying in the homes of friends and relatives.
68-year-old Adero Ramos, from the village of Casare in Ubay, lost his wife, 61-year-old Tarsila, and two of his daughters, 37-year-old Nita and 28-year-old Nenita to the storm.
"My wife decided we had to evacuate," he explained to the New York Times, "so we decided to take shelter in the mine shelter. But once we got inside it, it collapsed on us."
The warehouse worker was killed along with them."
"This year's Christmas was very sad," he says. "We had to bury them immediately because the funeral home couldn't get to the spot because of the debris covering the streets."
Following the disaster caused by Rai, the country's Commission on Climate Change called for immediate action at the local level to "build community resilience against climate-related extremes with the aim of minimizing losses and disasters."
"As global warming levels continue to rise," the committee said in a statement last week. "These extreme weather events and other climate impacts are becoming severe and potentially irreversible, threatening to pose even greater obstacles to our development as a nation."
Urgent need for food
In Bohol, where most of the hurricane deaths were recorded, the picture is one of complete devastation. Countless fallen trees and tons of rubble have covered everything. People are trying to salvage what they can from their destroyed homes - and their old lives.
Food shortages are one of the biggest problems, having hit people in remote areas even harder. Already several countries have announced their intention to help, while a UN agency has launched an appeal to raise $107.2 million "to support the government in addressing the most pressing humanitarian needs over the next six months".
"Families have nothing," Jerome Balinton, humanitarian aid officer for Save the Children, tells CNN. "The lights and music of Christmas have been replaced by dirty, wet evacuation centers. All they want this Christmas is to survive."
In addition to the food stored in homes and shops across the - largely Catholic - country, warehouses of valuable supplies such as rice have been destroyed. In the panic that followed the disaster, widespread looting was also recorded, as is usual in such cases, leaving families even more exposed.
Mental and physical exhaustion
Over 1.000 temporary shelters have been set up for those who have seen their lives destroyed, according to the National Council for Natural Disaster Risk Reduction and Management.
But for many of the displaced, the trauma is unbearable.
Alvin Dumduma, head of the Philippines program at Humanity and Inclusion, tells CNN that it is "debilitating" for families to try to rebuild their homes "while they are thirsty and starving."
Crammed into unsanitary evacuation centers without running water, they are also at risk of another threat: coronavirus.
Without a home and without a job
"Conditions in evacuation centers are far from ideal. It is unhealthy. Hundreds sleep under the same roof with no access to clean water. Children are not going to school. They have no electricity. They will be like this for a long time to come."
Dumduma says the disaster has robbed families of their livelihoods.
"Many come from fishing or farming communities that have seen their boats and land destroyed," he explains to CNN."They will find it very difficult to return to work."
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said the government will raise money for the rehabilitation and recovery of areas devastated by the typhoon.
But Dumduma believes major changes are needed at the government level to ensure that future storms do not bring similar heartbreak.
"Chaos prevailed because the government was unprepared. It should strengthen its natural disaster response programme," he warned. "We need more training, more preparation and early interventions."
The role of climate change
Climate change is already showing its teeth in the Philippines.
The worsening environmental crisis is leading to stronger and more destructive cyclones. Rei started as a Category 1 typhoon to reach Category 5 in just 24 hours.
And the country was not prepared for this scale of destruction.
Cairo Dela Cruz, deputy director of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities, explains to CNN that developing countries have reached the limits of their capabilities when it comes to managing climate disasters, and people in coastal areas will soon lose their homes to rising sea levels.
A study published in November by researchers from the Shenzhen Institute for Meteorological Innovation and the Chinese University of Hong Kong found that hurricanes in Asia could have twice as much destructive power by the end of the century. They are already lasting two to nine hours longer and reaching an average speed 100 kilometres deeper inland than four decades earlier.
The climate crisis is also revealing the Philippines' systemic problems, Dela Cruz observes.
"We need more resources to help us and we need to play a stronger role at the international level, to lobby for more climate finance," he says.
According to Dela Cruz, typhoons of Rai's magnitude are uncommon in December in the Philippines. Usually the country is hit from June to September.
Sad Christmas
With nowhere else to turn, many Bohol residents sought refuge in the church. A candlelight and torchlight service was held at dawn.
44-year-old Don Dre Lima was among the dozens of residents of Santo Nino in Ubay who attended the Christmas Eve service. It was raining heavily and water was dripping from the roof of the church.
"This Christmas was sad because my house has been extensively damaged," he tells the Times.After the service, his family would eat a simple meal by the light of a rechargeable flashlight.
Others were not so lucky.
Alicia Nemenzo, a 48-year-old woman, and her 21-year-old daughter, Mabel Nemenzo, spent Christmas Eve having taken refuge in a tiny roadside store. The storm destroyed their home. The only source of light for the two women was a candle.
"Now when it rains we get scared," she tells The Times. "I think we were all traumatized by the hurricane."
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