With 11.3 million people affected and 673,042 people displaced, there is no understating the severity of damage caused by Typhoon Haiyan (known locally as Yolanda).

Less than 24 hours after the largest recorded typhoon in history slammed into Visayas region of the Philippines, the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) had deployed a Coordinator to assess the damage and initiate provision of critical IT and telecommunications services to the humanitarian community.

The ETC is a global network of organisations that work together to provide common communications services in humanitarian emergencies. The World Food Programme (WFP) is leading ETC activities in Philippines with responsibility for coordination, implementation and overall operation support for common ICT services.

Six ETC responders are now in-country, with technicians from partner organisations including emergency.lu and Ericsson Response also being deployed to support this massive operation. Eric Kiruhura, seconded to the cluster from World Vision International, has been deployed to the operation as ETC Wingman and ETC NGO Coordinator. "The devastation is great and damage to infrastructure is massive," says Eric. "There is a clear requirement to go in and restore services."

"As the ETC we support NGOs, the UN and the government to be more effective in work which will go a long way in negating suffering and saving lives."

The ETC is already providing basic data and voice connectivity services to the humanitarian community in Tacloban. The ETC Response Solution, comprising technologies from emergency.lu and Ericsson Response, will be deployed in Tacloban today. In the coming week, the ETC is planning to provide security communications and data connectivity services to the humanitarian community in a total of five common operational areas including Tacloban, Cebu, Roxas City.

The main challenges facing the ETC are access to affected areas due to damaged transport infrastructure, as well as delays in getting equipment shipped in-country.

The Philippines Government has requested the Humanitarian Country Team to prioritize restoration of telecommunications services. The cluster was officially activated on November 11.