The death toll from Typhoon Mitag rose to 12 in the Philippines, officials said yesterday as search operations continued for a missing air force jet and a fishing vessel with 27 people aboard.
The number of people displaced also jumped to nearly half a million across 19 provinces ravaged by flash floods and landslides triggered by the storm, the Office of Civil Defence said.
Mitag weakened as it exited the Philippines toward the southern islands of Japan, but provinces in the north of Luzon island continued to be battered by strong winds and rain.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hagibis continued to dump rain over the islands of Palawan and Mindoro and was heading in a east-northeasterly direction.
Hagibis killed 13 people last week in its initial pass over the Philippines.
It reversed course on Monday to merge with Mitag, sinking a fishing boat near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea and leaving 27 Filipino crewmen missing, officials said.
A Philippine air force jet sent to search for the crew members also went missing in the area on Monday, the military said.
Also yesterday, a 6.0-magnitude earthquake shook the Philippine capital yesterday, sending some office workers fleeing into the city's streets, seismologists and witnesses said.
The quake struck at 12:27pm and was centered 195km northwest of Manila at a depth of depth 62.5km, the US Geological Survey said.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology gave a lower preliminary magnitude reading of 4.2.
An earthquake of a magnitude of at least 6.0 can damage buildings, although there were no reports of damage or casualties from the quake, which was felt over large areas of the main Philippine island of Luzon, the institute said.
Radio reports said some office buildings in Manila emptied as people rushed outside when the structures began to sway.
A power line burst into flames near Manila city hall but no injuries were reported.
The city's light railway system also stopped briefly, they added.
Journalists were among people who ran out of Malacanang presidential palace while Philippine President Gloria Arroyo conducted a Cabinet meeting on the second floor. The Cabinet meeting was not disrupted, officials said.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the