The Philippines has said "Thank you" on billboards around the world in gratitude for the massive outpouring of international help after a typhoon that killed about 8000 people three months ago.
Electronic billboards lit up with "Thank you" signs at New York's Times Square, Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Tokyo's Shibuya Crossing, London's Piccadilly Circus and five other cities at 2040 GMT Friday, exactly three months after Super Typhoon Haiyan struck the central Philippines.
"The number of lives lost and affected is unprecedented. But ever since then, the world has been one with the Philippines in helping rebuild the nation," the tourism ministry behind the ad and social media campaign said on its website.
"The Philippines wants to say a big thank you to everyone who are helping us rebuild after Typhoon Haiyan," the ministry said on its official Twitter page, where it later posted the billboard pictures.
Haiyan, one of the strongest typhoons ever to hit land, smashed across 171 towns and cities in the central islands with a combined land area the size of Portugal, wrecking the homes of more than four million people.
The government is still collecting corpses and looking for nearly 2000 missing people with 6201 deaths already confirmed, many of them swept away by giant, tsunami-like waves unleashed by Haiyan on coastal communities.
Amid the continuing difficulties, the tourism ministry urged the world's 100 million Filipinos on Saturday to join its "#PHthankyou" campaign on social media.
It suggested they download some of the ministry's "The Philippines says thank you" notes from its website and adorned with pictures of the country's top tourist draws, and post them on Facebook, Twitter, and other popular social networking sites.
