800 more missing as typhoon Washi sweeps houses into rivers and out to sea off southern island of Mindanao
Rescuers are searching for more than 800 people missing in the southern Philippines after flash floods and landslides swept houses into rivers and out to sea, killing more than 650 people.
The cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan on the island of Mindanao were worst hit when typhoon Washi hit shore late on Friday and early on Saturday, sending torrents of water and mud through villages and stripping mountainsides bare.
The Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) said 652 people were killed in eight provinces in the southern Mindanao region, which is unused to typhoons.
"Our office was swamped with hundreds of requests to help find their missing parents, children and relatives," Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the PNRC, told reporters. "We're helping co-ordinate the search with local government, army, police and even other aid agencies."
Floods washed away houses with families inside in dozens of coastal villages around Cagayan de Oro and Iligan.
"This is the first time this has happened in our city," Vicente Emano, mayor of Cagayan de Oro, said in a radio interview. He said officials in the area did not receive adequate warning before the typhoon struck.
The state disaster agency said adequate warnings had been given to officials and residents three days before the typhoon made landfall.
Disaster and health officials were struggling to deal with the scores of bodies that have been recovered. Some were stacked on top of each other in under-staffed mortuaries unable to cope with the number of dead.
"I saw for myself bloated bodies of women and children, not less than 100," the vice president, Jejomar Binay, told Philippines radio as he toured Cagayan de Oro.
Binay distributed food packs and ordered the relocation of families living near waterways and other hazards.
Brigadier General Roland Amarille, head of an army task force in Iligan, said soldiers had been mobilised to recover bodies and build coffins.
"We need bodybags and lime to deal with too many bodies," Amarille said, fearing an outbreak of disease.
"Local mortuaries are no longer accepting bodies and they are even asking people to bury the dead at once because there are too many bodies even in hallways," he said.
Most of the dead were from a slum area on an island sandwiched by two rivers in Iligan. "About 70% of the houses on the island were washed into the sea," Amarille said.
Mindanao, the southernmost major island in the Philippines, is a mineral-rich region that also produces rice and corn but is not normally in the path of the average 20 typhoons that hit the south-east Asian country each year.
"This poses challenges to us … We need to educate people with this kind of change in climate," Pang said. "The volume of rainfall for one month fell in just one day."
Typhoons normally strike the central Visayas region and the south and east of Luzon, the main island in the north.
Carmelita Pulosan, 42, said she and eight family members and neighbours in Cagayan de Oro survived by sitting on top of the tin roof of their house as it drifted miles into the open sea. They were rescued by a cargo ship.
"There was a deafening sound followed by a rush of water. We found ourselves in the river and the current took us out to the sea," said Pulosan.
"The current was very strong. God is really good to us. He saved my family," she said. Only one three-storey building was left standing in their village, Pulosan added.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said the US, a major ally of the Philippines, was ready to help. The Chinese embassy would donate $10,000 to help in the relief efforts, an embassy official said.
Washi, downgraded to a tropical storm with gusts of up to 50 miles an hour (80kmh), was about 40 miles west of the southwestern city of Puerto Princesa and was expected to move out of Filipino waters late on Sunday.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/18/philippines-floods-death-toll-650
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