Rescuers not optimistic about dozens missing

MANILA: Rescuers used bulldozers to dig through mountains of mud in the eastern Philippines to search for more than 40 people missing after a powerful storm triggered landslides on the weekend, authorities said yesterday.

Tropical Storm Kai-Tak continued to drag its way westward across the archipelago nation yesterday after leaving at least 31 dead over the weekend from drowning and landslides, the government monitoring agency said.

Most of the dead were in the island province of Biliran, which suffered the worst of the landslides, with many homes buried.

Rescuers searching for survivors were not optimistic.

“There is an assumption that the missing are dead,” said Sofronio Dacillo, a provincial disaster risk reduction and management officer.

The largely agricultural island of Biliran, with a population of more than 140,000, also suffered massive damage to its roads, bridges and power system, which was knocked out on the weekend.

Electricity supply was not expected to be restored until tomorrow, said Dacillo.

“It was like two months of rain fell on one day in Biliran. And because of this, the soil really softened, and that is also why so many bridges were destroyed,” said President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman, Harry Roque.

Kai-Tak’s winds were not very powerful, but its slow movement across the central islands unleashed heavy rains over a long period, flooding large areas.

Many islands hit by Kai-Tak bore the brunt of Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, which left more than 7,350 people dead or missing.

In a video message posted on Facebook, the island province’s governor, Gerardo Espina, said communities were running out of fuel and water as the storm had knocked out many vital bridges, preventing delivery of supplies.

“Of all the storms that passed Biliran... this is the one that we can call the worst,” he said.

Up to yesterday, Kai-Tak, packing gusts of 90kmph, had crossed central Philippines and was over the western island of Palawan, heading west at 18kph, the government weather station said.

The government expects the storm to move away from the Philippines today. AFP