MANILA: The death toll in tropical storm Kai-Tak’s onslaught in the central Philippines has risen to 42, with more than 40 people still missing, police and disaster relief officials said on Monday. Twenty-five of the victims died in landslides in the island province of Biliran, about 500 kilometres south of Manila, where 26 others are still unaccounted for, police said.
Seventeen people drowned in flash floods and sea accidents or were buried in landslides in other provinces affected by Kai-Tak, according to the police regional command.
President Rodrigo Duterte visited Biliran to inspect the damage and ordered officials to step up search and rescue operations, as rescuers dug through many metres of mud and rocks.
Soldiers, police officers, coastguard and fire personnel were leading the operations in Biliran, which were concentrated in the town of Naval, said Ricardo Jalad, head of the Office of Civil Defence.
They were joined by volunteers from a mining company in the nearby province of Cebu, said presidential regional assistant Michael Dino.
“The miners are here to help in the rescue and maybe there are still some who are alive,” he said.
Duterte assured local officials in Biliran of assistance from the national government, his spokesman Harry Roque said.
“He of course condoled with the victims of typhoon and pledged that the government will do everything it can to help Biliran rise again,” Roque told reporters.
Kai-Tak has weakened after crossing the central Philippines, the weather bureau said. It had maximum sustained winds of just 45 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 60 kph at the latest measurement.
The storm was moving west-south-west at 18 kph and was expected to be outside of the Philippines by early Tuesday afternoon, the bureau added.
Duterte’s spokesman Harry Roque also said 49 people were still missing.
Biliran suffered the brunt of the storm as the heavy rains caused landslides that buried many homes and destroyed roads and bridges.
Rescuers searching for survivors on the island were not optimistic.
“There is an assumption that the missing are already dead,” Sofronio Dacillo, a provincial disaster risk reduction and management officer, said.
The largely agricultural island of Biliran, with a population of more than 140,000 also had its power system knocked out and its electricity supply was not expected to be restored until Wednesday, said Dacillo.
“It was like two months of rain fell on one day in Biliran. And because of this, the soil really softened and that is also why so many bridges were destroyed,” said Roque. Officials also said more than 270,000 people were affected by the storm, with 191,000 in evacuation centres.
Kai-Tak’s winds were not very powerful, but its slow movement across the central islands unleashed heavy rains over a long period, flooding large areas.
Many of the islands hit by Kai-Tak also bore the brunt of Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, which left more than 7,350 people dead or missing.
In a video message posted on Facebook, the island province’s governor Gerardo Espina said communities were running out of fuel and water as the storm had knocked out many vital bridges, preventing delivery of supplies. — dpa/AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
