VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis will visit the Philippines region devastated by Typhoon Haiyan last year, with four million people still homeless, when he makes his first trip to Asia in January, the Vatican said yesterday.
During the January 12-19 trip he will spend two days in Sri Lanka, where Catholics are a tiny minority in the mostly Buddhist country, before moving on to the Philippines, Asia’s largest Roman Catholic country.
Francis will spend five days in the Philippines, all but one in the capital, Manila, according to a Vatican programme of the trip.
He will devote one day to Tacloban, where 6,300 people died last year when Typhoon Haiyan smashed into the country. He will celebrate a Mass, meet survivors and inaugurate a new Church-run centre for the poor.
Haiyan destroyed 90 percent of the city of Tacloban.
REUTERS
