More than 60 dead as deadly storm and landslides hit the Philippines
The death toll from a major storm that struck the Philippines at the weekend rose to 68 yesterday, officials said. It is expected the number of fatalities will climb even higher.
Fifty-seven people died in the mountainous Bicol region, southeast of Manila, while 11 were killed in the central island of Samar, mostly due to landslides and drownings, the officials said.
Claudio Yucot, Bicol civil defence director. said: “I am afraid this [death toll] will still go up because there are a lot of areas we still have to clear.”
Deadly storms are a regular occurrence in the Philippines, and this one had raised little alarm despite being relatively strong.
But after it hit the country on Saturday, it brought heavy rains that caused floods and loosened the soil, triggering landslides.
Many people failed to take necessary precautions because the storm, named locally as Usman, was not strong enough to be rated as a typhoon under the government’s storm alert system.
“People were overconfident because they were on vacation mode and there was no tropical cyclone warning,” Mr Yocot said.
Although Usman moved west ward away from the country yesterday, many affected areas were still experiencing seasonal rains, hampering rescue and recovery efforts, he added.
At least 17 people are still missing and more than 40,000 were displaced nationwide due to the storm, the civil defence office said.
About 100 soldiers, firefighters and police officers were involved in the search for missing people. Rubber boats were also deployed in flooded areas, the disaster management agency said.
Senator Richard Gordon, the head of the Philippine Red Cross, said on Twitter that teams had responded to landslide emergencies in the Albay Province town of Tiwi. The images he posted showed rescuers retrieving the dead.
An average of 20 typhoons and storms lash the Philippines each year, killing hundreds of people and leaving millions in near-perpetual poverty.