TACLOBAN CITY – Repair of damaged schools due to supertyphoon Yolanda in Leyte’s second district will now start as construction materials are now available. Thus said district engineer Carlos Veloso of the 2nd Leyte Engineering District (LED) of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). According to Veloso, the rehabilitation of the damaged schools under his area was delayed due to lack of materials. About 256 classrooms in Leyte’s second district were identified to be rehabilitated by the 2nd LED with partially damaged classrooms given priority for immediate repair within the 76 sites in various municipalities in the district. “These are schools which sustained minor damages such as their roofings. Those that were totally destroyed will have to be undertaken by the Department of Education,” Veloso said. The 2nd LED prioritized repair of classroom of three big schools through the use of the office own materials and funds. “We initially started the repair of these three sites so as to jump start the works. Everything else will be in full swing since the materials needed are now available,” Veloso said. He said that they target to finish the entire rehabilitation work before the start of classes this June to ensure that students will no longer attend their classes inside makeshift classrooms. Veloso said that with typhoon strength and frequency increasing yearly, the district aims to repair and rebuild classrooms with roofs that can endure maximum sustained winds of at least 300 kilometers per hour. With an average strength of 314 kilometers per hour, Yolanda was the strongest typhoon to make landfall in recent history. (AHLETTE C. REYES)