RP rescue teams scour towns for typhoon victims
RP rescue teams scour towns for typhoon victims
MANILA (Reuter): Rescue teams fanned out in typhoon-hit areas
to scour devastated towns and villages for the victims of the
most powerful storm to hit the Philippines in a decade, relief
officials said yesterday.
The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) dispatched two sacks of lime
and supplies of the preservative formalin to the town of Calauag,
a village 160 kilometers southeast of Manila, to ward off the
stench of decomposing bodies left by the storm.
At least 143 people died in the town after a tidal surge,
landslides and floods triggered by super-typhoon Angela's fury
last Friday caused havoc in the area.
"We are waiting for reports from the rescue teams on the
bodies they are digging out," Dolores Manio, OCD spokesperson,
said by phone.
"Calauag is asking for more formalin and two sacks of lime for
all the dead people in the area," she added.
Two Philippine Air Force transport planes flew out yesterday
morning to the Bicol region, one of the worst-hit areas at the
southern end of Luzon island, to distribute relief supplies.
Another flight brought along medical teams to treat people
injured by the typhoon. Over a dozen bridges were demolished by
the storm, hampering efforts by rescue teams.
At least 490 people were killed by Angela and over 2,800
injured when the typhoon struck last Friday, destroying farms,
ripping apart buildings and demolishing bridges and roads across
the country's most populous island.
"The process of digging out bodies will take days. There are
some areas that are very difficult to reach," a local official
told a Manila radio station.
Manio said it was impossible for the rescue teams to reach all
areas needing assistance immediately because of the limited
resources available to the government.
"We are already using the facilities of the Armed Forces, but
it would be difficult to tackle everything," she said.
More than 50,000 houses and traditional thatch huts were blown
away by the typhoon when it roared in from the Pacific ocean last
Friday.
Damage to crops, infrastructure and property has already
reached two billion pesos (US$77 million) and the bill is seen
rising in the coming days as a more complete accounting of the
damage is made, disaster officials said.
Angela is the second typhoon to hit the country and came five
days after tropical storm Zack ravaged the top sugar-producing
islands of Negros and Panay, jeopardizing the country's sugar
crop.
"It should lower the growth rate of the country," Jonas
Ferrer, research chief of Pryce Securities in Manila, said in an
interview. "If another typhoon like this hits us again, we're
dead."
Patrick Garcia of L.M. Garcia and Associates said the impact
of the two typhoons would likely trim growth in gross national
product (GNP) to 5.0 percent from earlier government forecasts of
GNP expanding by 6.0 percent in 1995.
Many areas in Manila remained without power, although life has
returned to normal.