Pope Francis Brings Hope to Tacloban Ten Years After Yolanda

TACLOBAN, Philippines — On a rain-lashed runway where devastation once defined the horizon, more than 200,000 survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda stood in silence, wrapped in yellow ponchos, waiting for a visitor who had come not to explain their loss, but to share it. On January 17, 2015, Pope Francis arrived in Tacloban, the city hardest hit by one of the strongest storms ever to make landfall, and in doing so offered a rare image of solidarity that endures a decade later.

Francis did not bring promises of reconstruction or political pledges. Instead, he brought presence — a simple act that proved disarming in its power. “This visit is meant to express my closeness to our brothers and sisters who endured and suffered loss and devastation caused by typhoon Yolanda,” he told the crowd during a Mass cut short by an approaching storm.

A City Still Counting Its Dead

When Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) struck the central Philippines on November 8, 2013, it killed more than 6,000 people nationwide and left over 1,000 missing. Tacloban City, in the eastern province of Leyte, was ground zero. Entire neighbourhoods vanished. Mass graves replaced town squares. Livelihoods, especially coconut farming and small fishing, collapsed overnight.

Fourteen months later, recovery remained uneven. Temporary shelters dotted the landscape, while many families were still mourning. Against this backdrop, Francis’s decision to travel to Eastern Visayas — rather than confining his visit to Manila — sent a clear signal about the Church’s priorities.

Yellow Ponchos and Shared Rain

The day of the Mass was unforgiving. Heavy rain driven by Tropical Storm Amang drenched the airport grounds at Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport, where survivors had waited for hours. Organisers distributed yellow ponchos, transforming the sea of people into a field of colour — an improvised symbol of hope amid the grey.

Francis, dressed simply and exposed to the same weather, delivered his homily partly in Spanish, his voice breaking at times. “So many of you have lost everything. I don’t know what to say to you. But the Lord does know what to say to you,” he said.

When told that poor weather threatened the programme, survivors refused to leave. “We’ve waited too long already. We’ll wait for him,” one attendee was heard saying. Francis ultimately left Tacloban earlier than planned at 1:07 p.m., but not before leaving a lasting imprint.

‘Lolo Kiko’ and the Language of Empathy

In the Philippines, Francis quickly became known as Lolo Kiko — “Grandpa Francis” — a nickname that reflected less his age than his approach. He avoided theological lectures, choosing instead gestures: a bowed head at a mass grave, a meal shared with 30 survivors of Yolanda and the 2013 Bohol earthquake, and quiet conversations with grieving families.

Earlier that day in nearby Palo, he blessed the Pope Francis Center for the Poor, a facility funded by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council Cor Unum. Completed in December 2014, the centre includes a clinic, chapel, an orphanage, and a home for the sick and elderly — a concrete extension of the message he delivered at the altar.

Faith, Poverty, and Climate Reality

The visit underscored a theme that would later define Francis’s papacy: the moral cost of environmental vulnerability borne disproportionately by the poor. Leyte, like much of the Visayas, sits in the path of increasingly volatile storms. Recovery, residents say, is never complete — only transitional until the next disaster.

“The poor are the most vulnerable during disasters that Pope Francis would like to address and give special concern from society, especially its leaders,” said Rev. Anton Pascual of Caritas Manila.

The Vatican had already donated $150,000 for Yolanda relief efforts, channelled through Cor Unum, but Francis’s presence did something money could not: it restored dignity to grief that had long felt unseen.

A Moment That Outlasted the Storm

Francis departed the Philippines on January 19, 2015, closing a visit that included a record-breaking Mass in Manila attended by more than six million people. Yet for many Filipinos — and especially for Tacloban — it is the image of a pope standing in the rain, poncho-less and exposed, that remains most vivid.

In a country where disasters are frequent and recovery often slow, that moment endures as a reminder that leadership is not always measured in solutions offered, but in willingness to stand with people when answers are scarce.

For Tacloban, hope once wore yellow — and it stood firm against the wind.