Rescuers dug out six survivors and more bodies buried under landslides that killed nearly 200 people in the storm-soaked northern Philippines, as workers rushed Saturday to clear mountain roads to aid relief efforts.
Damaged road and flooded highways were hampering the search for people trapped in houses buried by mud, but the weather was improving.
The rain-triggered landslides late Thursday and early Friday were the latest natural disaster to hit the Philippines, raising the death toll to more than 500 since back-to-back storms began pummelling the island Sept. 26, causing the worst flooding in more than 40 years.
Rescue operations were centered in two vast areas — in severely flooded Pangasinan province northwest of Manila, and the worst landslide-hit provinces of Benguet, Mountain Province and the resort city of Baguio, where most of the deaths occurred.
A 17-year-old boy was rescued from the rubble in his home in Baguio late Friday, and five others were pulled out alive in Mountain Province, said regional civil defense official Olive Luces.
"We are positive that we can still recover live victims. We don't think of the negatives," Luces said. "However difficult it is, our volunteers do not lose hope."
Luces said 120 bodies have been recovered in Benguet, 62 in Baguio and 15 in Mountain Province in the country's Cordillera region on the main Philippine island of Luzon after landslides hit the area Thursday.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment