LILOAN, Philippines, 22 December 2003 — Rescuers battled rain, mud and floodwaters yesterday in search of survivors after landslides and huge waves devastated eastern Philippine villages in a pre-Christmas tragedy that officials fear may have killed up to 200 people.
Melchor Rosales, executive director of the National Disaster Coordination Center, said the death toll has risen to at least 83 people, including 61 in the hard-hit central province of Southern Leyte, and 123 others were still missing.
Officials feared the final fatality count will rise as bad weather, blocked roads and downed power and telephone lines hampered rescue and recovery work. Leyte Gov. Rosette Lerias, who visited the devastated mountainside village of Punta late yesterday, reported 16 more dead which would place the official count at 99. “I just came from a very, very depressing site,” Lerias told The Associated Press by phone.
She said Punta was a picture of mayhem, with more than half of its 83 houses either destroyed or buried under huge mounds of earth, debris and coconut trees.
“There was mud all over, you couldn’t see anything but rooftops with the houses submerged in mud. There’s debris, wood, old clothes, kitchen utensils strewn all around ... in one spot they dug up the hand of a child,” Lerias said.
Rescuers have so far found 49 bodies in Punta, which had 360 residents, she said.
A village leader was also killed by falling trees in a nearby village, she said.
This brought the number of dead from the village to 50 as opposed to 34 in the official count.
Lerias said an 89-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl were dug up alive after being buried late Friday. They appeared to have survived thanks to an air pocket, she said.
But rescue efforts were bogged down by inclement weather. Lerias said her boat had to turn back because of huge waves.
She said she held out hope that some survivors might still be found.
“I’m still hoping that some could be found alive. Sometimes there could be some wind pipes that could allow them to breathe. Even saving one or two would be worth all the effort,” she said.
3rd Town Hit
Officials attributed some of the deaths to a tidal wave that struck San Ricardo town, also on Panaon Island, less than 24 hours after mudslides ravaged the neighboring towns of Liloan and San Francisco.
At least 101 houses in the biggest village of San Ricardo on Saturday afternoon.
Paulina Cero Lagang, a public school teacher who was reported missing after the tidal wave, was later found floating yesterday on the beach of Camiguin Island’s capital town of Mambajao in northern Mindanao. She was identified through her college ring.
Pintuyan, the fourth town on Panaon, was also reported to have been hit by landslides but there was no way to reach the area.
“The husband of the mayor was on a veranda, but in the next instant, he vanished because of that wave,” said Allen Olayvar of the Office of Civil Defense. Olayvar was referring to former San Ricardo Mayor Vicente Mejia, husband of Mayor Virginia Mejia.
Soldiers, police and civilian volunteers were helping, and military helicopters were waiting for the weather to clear enough for them to fly to hard-hit villages, Rosales said.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said she has asked Washington to send in Chinook helicopters — all-weather troops and cargo carriers.
Television images and pictures of what could be the country’s worst disaster this year were grotesque: One showed a mud-splattered man desperately trying to dig out a body with a crowbar while a companion tried to pull the cadaver from the muck with his hands.
Rescuers described digging up bodies of whole families buried together, including a mother embracing her children.
In Liloan, a mother wept as she cleaned the muddy remains of her son with water from a garden hose amid a throng of onlookers.
