Rescuers yesterday pulled at least four survivors from a building that collapsed in mudslides 10 days ago, while officials raised the known death toll from storms that devastated the Philippines' northeast to at least 842. More than 750 people are missing.
The four survived by drinking "any kind of liquid that dripped" from the rubble that entrapped them, said Maria Tamares, 49, who was pulled out alive together with her three-year-old granddaughter and two teenage boys in Real, about 70km east of Manila.
PHOTO: EPA
Covered with blankets and lying on makeshift stretchers, they were immediately flown to a hospital in nearby Lucena city in a military helicopter after being given sips of coconut water.
"We felt like we were entombed between heaven and earth," Ta-mares said in a phone interview. "There was nothing but darkness. I thought our time had come."
Tamares and the others apparently had been trapped in the kitchen of a two-story building that was buried under piles of mud on Nov. 29, when the worst of two back-to-back storms battered the region, causing massive landslides and flash floods.
About 40 miners volunteering in the Real search heard voices in the rubble of the building and used sledgehammers, torches, hacksaws and bolt cutters to punch a hole through the thick concrete roof to reach the survivors.
"After waking up one time, we heard some pounding above us and we yelled, 'Help us, help us, we're alive in here,' and they found us," Tamara said from her bed at a military hospital in Lucena. "It was a miracle. Thank God he gave us a second life."
She said she and the others perspired profusely in the extreme heat of the tiny, pitch black crevice.
As rescue crews continued to pick their way through debris, the Office of Civil Defense raised the number of confirmed deaths from the storms by 102 to 842. It said 751 people were still missing.
Colonel Pablo Amisola, spokes-man for the military's Southern Luzon Command, said that soldiers, who were also assisting, "heard voices and they peeped through a hole and they saw at least 20 survivors." But he later said the reports of the sighting were unconfirmed.
In Manila, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called the rescue of the four "a miracle" and said soldiers and volunteers would continue to search.
"They've been able to rescue some of them, so I'd like to thank God for that miracle and they are continuing to dig deeper to see if they can rescue any more," she said.
"We will continue our recovery efforts until in our judgment those that we have to recover have all been recovered," said the military's Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Efren Abu.
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS