Tropical storms leave hundreds deadandmissing in Philippines
Search and rescue crews struggle as flash flooding sweeps away homes and mudslides devastate village
FLASH floods in the Philippines yesterday swept away houses and triggered landslides leaving more than 100 dead and dozens missing.
Most of the deaths from Tropical Storm Tembin were in the hard-hit provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur and on the Zamboanga Peninsula. The number was expected to rise as many are still unaccounted for.
It is the latest disaster to hit the Philippines, which is battered every year by about 20 typhoons and storms, making the archipelago in the Pacific typhoon belt one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
Bong Edding, the mayor of Sibuco on the peninsula, said search and rescue operations were under way for more than 30 people caught up in the flash flooding in the fishing village of Anungan, 13 miles north of the town.
“The floodwaters from the mountain came down so fast and swept away people and houses,” Mr Edding said. “It’s really sad because Christmas is just a few days away, but these things happen beyond our control.”
He blamed years of deforestation in the mountains for the tragedy, adding that he and other officials would move to halt the logging operations there.
Thousands of villagers were moved to emergency shelters and thousands more were left stranded at airports and seaports after the coast guard prohib- ited ferries from venturing into the rough seas and several flights had to be cancelled. An inter-island ferry sank off northeastern Quezon province on Thursday after being lashed by fierce winds and massive waves, leaving at least five people dead.
However, disaster officials said that many residents had ignored the warnings to evacuate coastal areas and riverbanks. “Many people were swept out to sea as flood waters quickly rose due to the high tide,” Manuel Luis Ochotorena, a disaster agency official, said. “They never heeded the warnings. They thought it was a weak storm, but it dumped more rains.”
Hundreds of miles to the east, army and emergency workers were checking reports that an entire village had been buried in a mudslide in Tubod town in Lanao del Norte.
Ryan Cabus, a local official, said power and communication lines to the area had been cut, complicating rescue efforts. Gerry Parami, a police officer, said that there had been at least 19 deaths in the town, 120 miles north west of Davao City.
“The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no longer there,” he said.
Volunteers were digging through mud to try to recover bodies. One fisherman was attacked and killed by a crocodile while trying to secure his boat as the tropical storm bore down on the western island of Palawan. Abdulsalam Binang Amerhasan, 53, went to the river in driving rain to tie up his boat, with waters rising as Tembin closed in. His remains were found several hours later.
A spokesman for the Centre for Disaster Preparedness told The Sunday Telegraph they were rushing to get aid to the worst-hit areas. “It’s vital we reach those who have been completely cut off. That is the priority,” he said.
Earlier in the week, a tropical storm left more than 50 people dead and 31 others missing, mostly due to land-
‘The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no longer there’
slides. It damaged more than 10,000 houses in the central Philippines before weakening and blowing into the South China Sea.
Among the areas battered by Tembin was Marawi, a lakeside city in Lanao del Sur that was still struggling to recover from a five-month armed siege by pro-Islamic State (Isil) extremists that ended in October with more than 1,000 dead and 1,400 people wounded.
The whole region is still recovering from Typhoon Haiyan, a tropical storm that killed more than 7,000 people and affected millions more in 2013.