Rescuers scrambled yesterday to reach thousands of people stranded by a powerful typhoon that sliced through the Philippines on the heels of a storm which left more than 650 people dead and hundreds missing.
Mudslides and flash floods have turned entire provinces facing the Pacific Ocean into a sea of chocolate-brown mud littered with bodies, uprooted trees, collapsed homes and bridges. Nearly 170,000 people have fled their homes to higher ground.
Yesterday, soldiers reported finding about 100 dead in Dumingan in Aurora province, about 100km northeast of Manila, Major General Romeo Tolentino told ABS-CBN TV.
"We found out today that there is a district in the village of Dumingan, where more or less 100 people are dead," he said. "Our soldiers now are helping the populace to recover the survivors and bury the dead."
He had no details how the residents died. Previously, officials said 20 people died in Aurora.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appealed to the nation to "come together ... [and] reach out to those who need help."
"We need one great heave to deliver the relief supplies, find the missing, rescue the isolated, feed the hungry and shelter the homeless," Arroyo said in a televised statement.
Most of the deaths occurred when a powerful tropical storm hit six northeastern provinces late Monday, killing at least 527 people, the military's Chief of Staff General Efren Abu said yesterday. Hardest hit was Quezon, where 484 bodies were recovered and 352 were still missing.
Typhoon Nanmadol swiped the same area late Thursday, killing at least 30, including 25 in a landslide in Aurora, the Office of Civil Defense reported.
Exact casualty figures were hard to establish, with many towns cut off by landslides. Soldiers, police and medical workers trekked with relief supplies across flood-ravaged roads and bare mountains to try to reach the victims.
"We're getting reports of bodies still floating in the rivers," said air force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Restituto Padilla.
In Real, in Quezon province, Mayor Arsenio Ramallosa said the storm had left scores of dead and missing.
"We have been severely devastated," he said. "Our food supply is dwindling and good for only another three days."
He said a building at a beach resort, where about 100 people sought shelter during the storm, collapsed when it was hit by a landslide and that most of the people were still buried.
One man was miraculously dug out of the rubble alive early yesterday, he said.
He said most of the town's 40,000 residents had been evacuated. Floodwaters in some places reached more than 2m high, he said.
Meanwhile, about 400 soldiers carrying relief supplies on foot were approaching Real, Cabuay said.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS