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| Sunday, 5 December 2004 |
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Flood-hit Philippine towns mop up, rescuers arrive REAL, Philippines, Saturday (Reuters) Weather improved in the Philippines on Saturday after four heavy storms in two weeks, helping rescuers reach thousands cut off by landslides and floods, but supplies were short and fears of disease were spreading. Typhoon Nanmadol, which lashed the Philippines on Thursday and Friday, was downgraded to a tropical storm as it hit Taiwan on Saturday. Hundreds of people fled their homes and two people were reported missing after torrential rains on the island. Nanmadol killed at least 35 people in the Philippines and affected as many as 300,000, disaster officials said. The receding flood waters were revealing more bodies, residents said. At least 1,000 people are dead or missing from the flooding and landslides over the past two weeks. Residents in Real, where 360 people were killed and 130 remained missing after villages were swept by rampaging floods and landslides on Monday, burned some of the corpses to prevent the spread of disease, military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Buenaventura Pascual said. "Here in the village of Tignoan, local officials are requesting for more body bags and lime so they could bury their dead," Pascual said. Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit has urged residents in affected areas to bury their dead quickly to prevent the spread of disease. Floods and landslides regularly hit the archipelago of some 7,000 islands. In the worst recent disaster, more than 5,000 people died in floods triggered by a typhoon in southern Leyte island in 1991. The storms had caused an estimated 1.3 billion pesos ($23.3 million) in damage to crops, livestock and fisheries, the agriculture department said. |
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