Typhoon Yutu lashes Philippines, kills seven and traps 30 in landslide

MANILA: Philippine rescue teams worked to free at least 30 people trapped under earth and rubble yesterday after a typhoon dumped heavy rainfall on a mountainous region, triggering floods and deadly landslides.

Soldiers and disaster agency personnel managed t o pass through blocked roads to reach the remote area during the night in the northern Mountain Province, where a building owned by the local highways department was engulfed by an avalanche of earth.

A body was recovered from the site, one of seven people killed on Tuesday in four provinces in the Cordillera region, said Ruben Carandang, director of its civil defence office.

swept across the main island of Luzon on Tuesday with winds of 140kph and gusts of up to 230kph, before exiting the area in the evening.

It came six weeks after super typhoon caused nearly 50 landslides in the Cordilleras, killing more than 70.

“In the pictures sent to me this morning, the building was not flattened. There were doors open. There are open spaces,” Carandang said by phone.

“There is a possibility there are people still alive. They will not die if they were not crushed.”

The disaster agency said 20 labourers, an engineer, three security guards and six or seven residents sheltering from the typhoon were inside.

Six of t hose killed i n t he Cordillera region died in landslides and another drowned i n an overflowing river. Four of the dead were children aged between five and 11.

Radio reported a man was electrocuted in Isabela province, where made landfall. The national disaster agency reported no confirmed casualties on Wednesday but said seven people were “affected” by landslides.

Thousands in the typhoon’s path were evacuated before the storm hit, mostly in mountainous, coastal and river areas at risk of floods, storm surges and mudslides.

When it struck the Philippines,

winds were half the strength of those it packed five days earlier, when as a super typhoon, it piled into the US Northern Mariana islands, about 6,00okm west of Hawaii, killing one person, wounding more than 130 and damaging critical infrastructure.

the 18th typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, was moving towards southern China yesterday and had weakened to a tropical storm with winds of 102kph and gusts of 130kph, according to the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii. – Reuters