Relief workers battled rain and choppy seas yesterday to deliver food and medicine to the country's northeast following devastating back-to-back storms that killed at least 568 people and left hundreds more missing.
The mayor of Real, one of the three coastal towns worst hit by flash floods and mudslides last week, said at least three mountain villages remain isolated from rescuers, though they were not believed to be as severely affected.
Philippine officials have appealed for international aid, but the bad weather and damaged infrastructure were hampering relief efforts.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has blamed illegal logging for exacerbating the floods, and said those responsible would be prosecuted like hardened criminals. She also imposed a moratorium on logging.
Real and the nearby towns of Infanta and General Nakar, about 70km east of Manila, were accessible only by boats and helicopters. Ships were unable to reach far-flung villages because of floating debris, and rubber boats ferried relief goods from ship to shore.
"What we need are food, water and medicine, plus temporary shelter," Mayor Arsenio Ramallosa said. "Tents and even tarpaulins will do. Thankfully, we have had continuous flow of relief supplies and those that run out are being replenished."
He said workers clearing roads that were blocked by landslides were slowly making their way to Real, but he was told by engineers that large boulders may have to be blasted with explosive.
He said at least 250 people have been counted dead in Real, but that dozens more bodies were buried in a building that collapsed under a mudslide.
Most of the destruction was wrought by a tropical storm that blew through northeastern provinces Nov. 29, killing at least 530 people and leaving 607 missing. Typhoon Nanmadol struck the same region three days later, leaving 38 dead and 33 missing, according to the Office of Civil Defense.
In Infanta, next to Real, residents appealed to authorities to be allowed to leave on rescue helicopters delivering food aid. But casualties were given priority seats.
Mildred delos Santos tried unsuccessfully to get her 78-year-old mother, who is suffering from hypertension, and 10-year-old daughter on a helicopter to Manila. She said they saved themselves from debris-laden floodwaters by breaking a hole through their roof and getting on top of their house.
"It was terrible. We saw one family of about 15 cling to a tree, but the tree was also washed away by the flood. They died," she said. "They were pitiful. Those people were shouting for help but we could not do anything. We were on the roof."
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS