Disaster on all sides for distraught Filipinos

MANILA, PHILIPPINES • Tens of thousands of villagers in the southern Philippines spent their Christmas morning in emergency shelters Monday as the region dealt with the aftermath of a powerful storm that left more than 150 people dead.

For the 100 million people scattered across 7,000 islands, typhoon Tembin was only the largest of a series of disasters to befall the predominantly Roman Catholic nation over just a few days around Christmas.

Firefighters Monday found all 37 bodies of employees of a U.S.-based company who were trapped in a blaze that gutted a shopping mall Saturday in Davao city. All the dead were employees at a call centre on the top floor of the four-story mall run by U.S.-based Research Now SSI.

A passenger bus collided with a van carrying pilgrims to Christmas Mass at a church on Monday, leaving 20 people dead and more than two dozen injured, police said. All those killed in the pre-dawn collision in La Union province’s Agoo town were in the van, known as jeepneys. Another 10 van passengers, along with the driver and 17 other occupants of the bus, were injured. The van’s engine was ripped off due to the impact of the crash.

An inter-island ferry sank off northeastern Quezon province Thursday after being lashed by fierce winds and big waves, leaving at least five people dead. More than 250 passengers and crewmen were rescued.

Earlier in the week, another tropical storm left more than 50 people dead and 31 others missing, mostly due to landslides, and damaged more than 10,000 houses in the central Philippines.

But by far the greatest devastation was left by the weekend typhoon, which unleashed landslides and flash floods that killed at least 164 people and left 171 others missing.

Initial reports placed the overall death toll at more than 230, but officials warned of double counting amid the confusion and said the numbers needed to be verified.

More than 97,000 people remained in 261 evacuation centres across the southern Philippines on Monday, while nearly 85,000 others were displaced and staying elsewhere, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said.

The hardest-hit areas were Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur provinces and the Zamboanga Peninsula.

Tembin hit the Philippines as a tropical storm but strengthened into a typhoon before blowing out of the country Sunday into the South China Sea toward Vietnam. Officials had warned villagers in accidentprone areas to evacuate early as Tembin approached.