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Search crews comb Philippine seas for missing fishermen

Ships and planes scoured the northern Philippine seas yesterday for dozens of fishermen missing after waves the size of two-story buildings smashed their boats to pieces.

Forty-eight fishermen have been rescued after swimming ashore while clinging desperately to the wreckage of their boats, while at least 67 were still missing two days after gale-force winds and giant waves caught them at sea, the coast guard said.

One man drowned.

Officials and survivors said the waves were huge enough to crush some of the 80 outrigger fishing boats estimated to be at sea at the time.

"Wave after wave struck us, as tall as two-story buildings," 47-year-old Alfredo Macayan said. "I prayed, `Lord, save me and my son.'"

Macayan said he and his teenaged son hung on tightly to the outrigger of their smashed boat and swam toward shore.

But they lost four companions on two other boats.

"Their boats overturned and my companions sank into the sea. I never saw them again," Macayan said.

Tragedies at sea are common in the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands that is buffeted by 20 typhoons each year, on average.

The disaster took place on Friday night in the seas off La Union Province, 250km north of Manila, local officials said, clarifying an earlier coast guard report that said it happened early on Saturday.
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