The death toll from floods and landslides caused by a tropical storm in the Philippines has hit 98, with 63 persons still missing, the national disaster agency said on Monday.
The Philippine rescuers on Monday waded through thigh-deep mud using long pieces of wood to search for bodies buried by a landslide, as the death toll from a powerful storm rose to 98.
Just over half of the fatalities were from a series of flash floods and landslides unleashed by Tropical Storm Nalgae, which destroyed villages on the southern island of Mindanao on Friday.
Mindanao is rarely hit by the 20 or so typhoons that strike the Philippines each year, but storms that do reach the region tend to be deadlier than in Luzon and central parts of the country.
More than 1.9 million people were affected, of which 975,000 were displaced.
The agency said more than 309,000 were staying in evacuation centres.
There is little hope of finding survivors in the worst-hit areas after the storm swept across the archipelago nation, inundating communities in and around the capital Manila over the weekend.
The national disaster agency has recorded 63 people still missing and scores of others injured.
Perfidia Seguendia, 71, and her family lost all their belongings except the clothes they were wearing when they fled to their neighbour’s two-storey house in Noveleta municipality, south of Manila.
“Everything was flooded — our fridge, washing machine, motorcycle, TV, everything,” Seguendia told AFP.
“All we managed to do was to cry because we can’t really do anything about it. We weren’t able to save anything, just our lives.”
The Philippine Coast Guard posted pictures on Facebook showing its personnel in devastated Kusiong village, in Maguindanao del Norte province of Mindanao, struggling through thick, thigh-deep mud and water as they searched for more bodies.
Kusiong was buried by a massive landslide, which created a huge mound of debris, just below several picturesque mountain peaks.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr visited flood-stricken areas in Cavite Province on Monday, bringing additional relief supplies.
He stressed the need for pre-emptive evacuation ahead of storms to ensure the safety of residents.
“Our flood control measures were overwhelmed by the floods. That’s why I keep reminding disaster risk reduction agencies that the most important thing when preparing for a storm is that we have pre-emptive evacuations,” he stated.
“We need to be ahead of the typhoon so that even if the typhoon hits an area, the residents will not be victimised.”
Mr. Marcos lamented the high death toll from the floods and landslides in Maguindanao Province, asking authorities why the residents were not evacuated before the calamity.
Fifty-three of the dead were from the southern province of Maguindanao, where floods and landslides buried more than 100 houses.
According to the report, 22 people are still missing in the province.
Nineteen were killed in the Western Visayas Region, while 12 died in the Provinces of Cavite, Laguna and Batangas, just south of Manila.
Fourteen deaths were reported in other eastern and southern provinces battered by the storm.
The disaster agency said that twenty-nine people were reported missing in the Eastern Visayas Region.
Nalgae was expected to move off the Philippines late Monday, the weather bureau said. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 85km an hour (km/h) and gusts of up to 105 km/h.
The Philippines archipelago was hit by an average of 20 tropical cyclones yearly.
(dpa/NAN)
