The death toll from landslides and flash floods in the eastern Philippines jumped to nearly 350 with 150 others missing yesterday, most of them from a region still reeling from last week's deadly typhoon.
Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said 316 people were killed and 150 missing in Quezon province, about 70km east of Manila.
PHOTO: EPA
She said the bad weather had forced some rescue helicopters to turn back from areas where many people were stranded on rooftops.
Reuben Sindac, police intelligence chief in Quezon, quoted a colleague as saying he saw 10 to 20 bodies floating in the floodwaters.
He said police communications equipment and vehicles in Infanta were damaged and the whole town was underwater.
The government said 45 people were killed in Quezon province. Another 19 were killed in nearby Aurora province.
At least eight other people were killed in Rizal province, and one person each died in a Manila suburb and in Camarines Norte province, Amparo said.
Radio DZBB, quoting military and local officials, reported three people drowned in Bulacan province, but the number has not yet been reflected in civil defense records.
Air force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Restituto Padilla said that stricken towns in Quezon were inaccessible after swollen rivers washed away bridges and uprooted trees.
Rescuers also received reports of 14 other people missing in Quezon province, said air force Colonel Alfredo Cayco.
A coast guard helicopter flew 12 people who were injured in the Quezon landslides to Manila for treatment, most with fractures and some in critical condition, Amparo said.
A private helicopter used to survey damage crash-landed in flood waters in northern Nueva Ecija province, but the pilot and a radio reporter with him were rescued by a military helicopter.
TV footage showed residents stranded on patches of dry land, waving at rescue helicopters. Brown-colored floodwater submerged bridges, and large areas of hillsides were swept away, sending tons of dirt and debris onto roads and toppling coconut trees.
The Philippines is hit with about 20 storms and typhoons a year. A typhoon and another storm in the country's east last week killed at least 87 people and left 80 others missing.
Weather forecasters warned that another typhoon may hit the Philippines this week.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS