Death toll from tropical storm in Philippines grows to 83

September 28, 2009|Associated Press

MANILA - Rescuers retrieved bodies from muddy flood waters and saved drenched survivors from rooftops yesterday after a tropical storm tore through the northern Philippines and left at least 83 people dead and 23 missing.

It was the region’s worst flooding in more than four decades. The government declared a “state of calamity’’ in metropolitan Manila and 25 provinces.

Tropical Storm Ketsana roared across the northern Philippines on Saturday, dumping more than a month’s worth of rain in just 12 hours. The resulting landslides and flooding have left at least 83 people dead and 23 others missing, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said.

Many parts of the capital remained flooded yesterday, although waters were quickly receding.

TV footage shot from a military helicopter showed drenched survivors marooned on top of half-submerged passenger buses and rooftops in the suburbs of Manila. Some dangerously clung to high-voltage power lines, while others plodded through waist-high flood waters.

Authorities deployed rescue teams on boats to save survivors sighted during the aerial check.

More than 330,000 people were affected by storm, including some 59,000 who were brought to about 100 schools, churches, and other evacuation shelters, officials said.

The “state of calamity’’ declaration allowed officials to utilize emergency funds for relief and rescue.

Teodoro said that so far, army troops, police, and civilian volunteers have rescued more than 5,100 people. Many residents lost all their belongings in the storm, but were thankful they were alive.

The sun shone briefly in Manila yesterday and showed the extent of the devastation in many neighborhoods - destroyed houses, overturned vans and cars, and streets and highways covered in debris and mud.

Governor Joselito Mendoza of Bulacan Province, north of the capital, said it was tragic that “people drowned in their own houses’’ as the storm raged.