Rescuers using backhoes and chainsaws yesterday began digging the Philippines out from the devastation of Typhoon Fung-wong, as floodwaters receded in hundreds of villages and the storm’s death toll climbed to 25.
Fung-wong, which displaced 1.4 million people, had weakened into a severe tropical storm even as it began dumping rain on neighboring Taiwan ahead of an expected landfall today.
It was the second major typhoon to hit the Philippines in days, after Typhoon Kalmaegi last week rampaged through the archipelago’s central islands on its way to killing 232 people, according to the latest figures.
Photo: AFP
In coastal Isabela province, a town of 6,000 remained cut off from help yesterday, a civil defense spokesman said, with parts of neighboring Nueva Vizcaya province similarly isolated.
“We are struggling to access these areas,” Cagayan Valley region spokesman Alvin Ayson said, adding that landslides had prevented rescuers from reaching affected residents.
Others were “now in evacuation centers, but when they get back to their homes, their rebuilding will take time and face challenges.”
Photo: Reuters
He added that a 10-year-old boy in Nueva Vizcaya had been killed by one of the landslides.
The child was among 25 deaths recorded in a new death toll released yesterday by Philippine Office of Civil Defense Deputy Administrator Rafaelito Alejandro.
Even “early recovery” efforts would take weeks, Alejandro said.
“The greatest challenge for us right now is the restoration of lifelines, road clearing, and restoration of power and communication lines, but we are working on it,” he said.
In hardest-hit Catanduanes island, issues with the water supply could take up to 20 days to fix, he said.
Jossa Floranza, a resident of the island’s Virac town, said that another typhoon had already forced her to move neighborhoods, only to see her new home destroyed as well.
“We thought we were safe here,” the 34-year-old said, adding the family was driving 20 minutes by motorbike to get water from a nearby river.
“My neighbors said this was the first time that they experienced flooding in this area,” Floranza said. “I am very tired of this. So tired.”
In Cagayan, part of the Philippines’ largest river basin, provincial rescue head Rueli Rapsing said on Monday that a flash flood in neighboring Apayao province had caused the Chico River to burst its banks, sending nearby residents scrambling to their roofs.
“The water level here at Centro 4 village is rising,” a Cagayan information officer in another boat said in a video posted to Facebook.
“There are residents still in the upper floors of multistory houses,” he said without giving his name.
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