Philippines typhoon toll hits 45

Week-long assault captures extremist camp

Rescuers search for survivors amongst collapsed buildings after a landslide in Shenzhen, in south China’s Gauangdong province, on Dec 20. The landslide collapsed and buried buildings at and around an industrial park in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Sunday, authorities reported. (AP)

CALUMPUT, Philippines, Dec 20, (AFP): The death toll from two storms which battered the Philippines rose to 45 Sunday as several towns remained under water and rain kept falling in northern regions, disaster monitoring officials said.

The rain was caused by a cold front, dragged into the country by Typhoon Melor and Tropical Depression Onyok which hit the Philippines in succession last week.

Floods almost three metres (nine feet) deep covered some riverside areas north of the capital Manila as heavy rain kept falling, civil defence offices said.

“Our home has been flooded up to the waist. It has been flooded for over two days,” said Mary Jane Bautista, 35, in the industrial town of Calumpit 50 kms (30 miles) north of the capital.

Her family and several others were forced to take refuge on nearby high ground — in front of a church where their only shelter is the awning over the entrance.

“My husband has to wade through the waters to go home to get supplies. If we need water, he has to go to the faucet in our kitchen,” she told AFP, expressing fears the current could wash him away.

Relief

“We had some food but it just ran out,” she said, complaining that government relief goods had not yet reached her.

Around her the streets had turned into fast-moving rivers, passable only by rowboats and people using inner tubes.

Many low-lying areas north of Manila act as a catchment area for rain in other parts of the main island of Luzon.

“It (the flood) really takes a long time to recede because this is the lowest area,” said Glenn Diwa, an officer with the regional disaster council.

Over 54,000 people in the region were huddling in government evacuation centres, she said, adding there was no guarantee they would be home by Christmas, one of the biggest holidays in the largely Catholic nation.

Melor hit the southeast of Luzon on Dec 14 and moved west across the archipelago.

Even as it departed to the South China Sea, another storm named locally as Onyok hit the southern island of Mindanao and brought more heavy rain.

Almost a week after Melor struck, the death toll was still rising, with the bodies of four dead fishermen washed up in the eastern region of Bicol.

“They left during clear weather. But they were caught by the typhoon on the way home,” said Cedric Daep, the region’s civil defence chief.

The unregistered vessel did not have a radio or even life vests, he told AFP.

The government weather station said Onyok had dissipated and the weather would improve nationwide by Monday.

The nation of 100 million people is battered by an average of 20 typhoons annually, many of them deadly. In 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan wiped out entire fishing communities in the central islands, leaving 7,350 people dead or missing.

Also: ZAMBOANGA, Philippines:

A weeklong assault by Philippine troops ended with the capture of a Muslim extremist camp and the deaths of 26 militants and three soldiers, a military spokesman said on Sunday.

Soldiers captured the Abu Sayyaf camp in a forested area on the southern island of Basilan but an improvised explosive device left behind by the rebels, injured 12 soldiers on Sunday, said

“After we captured the camp, they were clearing the bunkers when the IED exploded,” he told AFP.

About 300 soldiers, backed by artillery and attack helicopters, launched the attack on the Abu Sayyaf group on strife-torn Basilan about 885 kms (550 miles) from Manila on Monday, starting days of intense combat.

The battle involved as many as 150 members of the Abu Sayyaf group, according to the military, which also reported militant deaths that could not be verified.

A total of 26 Abu Sayyaf fighters were slain, Tan said but the military was unable to recover their bodies.

“The populace of the area, they confirmed it. They were buried at once according to Muslim tradition. Others were seen by our troops, being shot, falling and not getting up,” he told AFP.

The rest of the Abu Sayyaf members fled in different directions before dawn on Sunday, he said.

Sixteen Abu Sayyaf fighters were also wounded along with 14 soldiers before the IED blast on Sunday, Tan added.

Pursuit operations were continuing against the remnants of the Abu Sayyaf group and its leaders in Basilan, he said.

The captured camp, measuring 30,000 sq mtrs (323,000 ft) could accomodate about 250 people with 28 structures including fortified bunkers, the military said.

Basilan, an impoverished island of about 400,000 people, has long been a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, a group formed in the 1990s with the help of Al-Qaeda founder

The Abu Sayyaf is infamous for kidnapping people, including foreigners and demanding huge ransoms for their release.

The group has also been blamed for the worst terror attacks in the country, including the firebombing of a ferry off Manila Bay in 2004 that killed over 100 people.

Last year, Abu Sayyaf leaders pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, which controls vast swathes of Syria and Iraq.