At least 131 people were killed in a series of landslides and floods brought about by days of heavy rains in the northern Philippines, officials said yesterday.
Thousands of people were also trapped on the roofs of their houses in more than 20 towns in Pangasinan province because of floods that have turned roads and highways into raging rivers.
Rescue operations moved slowly as helpers struggled with debris and vehicles blocking the streets, as well as the raging floodwaters.
US troops were dispatched to several areas in Pangasinan to help in the rescue operations.
Seventy of the fatalities were killed in landslides in La Trinidad town in Benguet province, 210km north of Manila, provincial Governor Nestor Fongwan said.
Fongwan said at least 32 houses were buried in La Trinidad when a mountain collapsed before dawn yesterday.
“There is a place in La Trinidad where a mountain crushed and buried at least 32 houses,” he said. “It occurred before dawn, and people were sound asleep and were not able to escape.”
He said rescue workers were using picks and shovels as they could not use heavy equipment because the soil was unstable.
Fongwan said another landslide buried at least 10 houses in Abatan town, killing at least 17 people. Seventeen people were also killed in the northern resort city of Baguio.
Senior Superintendent Loreto Espinili, the provincial police commander, said 13 more victims were killed in separate landslides in the towns of Mankayan, Bugias, Tublay and Sablan.
“We believe the death toll will still increase because the landslides were massive,” he said, adding that rampaging floods were worsening the situation in the affected areas.
In Mountain Province, five people were confirmed killed in landslides and 32 were missing, Governor Maximo Dulag said.
At least nine more people were killed in accidents related to the disasters in the provinces of La Union, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte and Pangasinan, said Chief Superintendent Ramon Gatan, a regional police director.
“The floods are devastating,” he said. “Almost entire towns are under water now.”
Floods also submerged a large portion of the northern plains — including the provinces of Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Pampanga and Bulacan — after days of heavy rains brought about by a weakened Tropical Storm Parma.
The floods worsened when five dams in the northern Philippines were forced to release water after their levels became critical because of the heavy rainfall.
Twenty-five people were killed in previous landslides, floods and other accidents when Parma first slammed into the northern Philippines last Saturday.
The typhoon has hovered over the northern provinces and hit land two more times as it was sucked in by Typhoon Melor, which passed by the country on its way to Japan.
The weather bureau said Parma was moving out of the Philippines, but would affect the country for the next two days. It was moving at 11kph toward the South China Sea.
Parma’s havoc followed the worst floods in more than 40 years in Metro Manila and its outlying provinces brought about last month by Tropical Storm Ketsana, which killed 337 people and left 37 missing.
RSS