Death toll from Philippines' quake recorded at 65
Death toll from Philippines' quake recorded at 65
CALAPAN, Philippines (Reuter): Filipino rescuers yesterday found the bodies of three more young children killed by an earthquake and tidal wave as they slept.
The discovery took the death toll from Tuesday's quake to at least 65.
The three, aged between three and five, were found 150 meters from their homes in Baco, a small town on the central Philippine island of Mindoro that bore the brunt of the disaster, a senior official said.
Rescuers were still searching areas along the east coast of Mindoro where roads and bridges were destroyed.
President Fidel Ramos, who has declared Mindoro a calamity area, has cut short his trip to Indonesia for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to visit the stricken area.
He is due to return home today, one day ahead of schedule, a government statement said.
As the people of Mindoro began to bury their dead, senior local official Miguel Avelino said thousands of people displaced by the quake urgently needed aid.
"As of now we need additional medicines considering the number of wounded," he said. "We need food, medicines and shelter for the people, also clothing."
Officials said 26 poor victims would be buried in a mass paupers' funeral at the Roman Catholic cemetery today in the provincial capital of Calapan.
The earthquake was the most damaging to strike the Philippines since July 1990 when nearly 1,600 people died in the mountainous north of Luzon island, including more than 370 people in the resort of Baguio.
The Mindoro quake registered 7.0 on the Richter scale.
Many of those killed were young children who drowned when their homes were hit by a tidal wave which survivors said smashed down on their flimsy wood and palm thatch houses.
Rescue workers said they had found some children's bodies hanging from trees, thrown there by the force of the waves.
Deserted
Baco was virtually deserted the day after the quake as survivors trudged towards Calapan with a few belongings. The water had receded but overturned trees, smashed houses and dark mud marked the passage of the tidal wave.
Japanese Prof. Yuji Murata, who was trapped on Mindoro's Mount Halcon with two Filipino companions by landslides, was rescued early yesterday.
Murata, a professor at Tokyo Nodei University, was picked up by a military helicopter from a tribal settlement about halfway up the 2,585-meter mountain.
More than 1,300 aftershocks followed the quake, 189 of them strong enough to rattle the nerves of people still in shock, seismologists said. The strongest measured 5.1 on the Richter scale.
Hundreds of people who lost their homes or were too nervous to stay inside crowded into the grounds of Calapan's hospital for the night.
Inside the small hospital the hallways were crowded with injured lying on the floor or anywhere where there was room.
"They are in the hospital hallways because there is no more space. The hospital is too small," said provincial health officer Dr Romeo Infantado.
The quake on Mindoro, about 140 kilometers south of Manila, badly damaged at least 19 bridges, smashed roads and knocked out power and the water system.