Rescuers evacuating a resident to safer ground at Abuyog, Leyte province, central Philippines last Sunday. Image: AP/PA Images Rescuers evacuating a resident to safer ground at Abuyog, Leyte province, central Philippines last Sunday. Image: AP/PA Images THE DEATH TOLL from landslides and floods in the Philippines rose to 58 today, official tallies showed, as rescuers dug up more bodies with their bare hands in villages crushed by rain-induced avalanches.
Aerial photos showed a wide stretch of mud that had swept down a hill of coconut trees and engulfed Bunga village, where only a few rooftops poked through the now-transformed landscape. Around 50 survivors have been ferried from the village, the Bureau of Fire Protection said on Facebook yesterday. Raymark Lasco, a radio operator at the Abuyog disaster agency, told AFP that “many people” had died and that rescue operations were ongoing.Search operations also resumed around Baybay City after the rain stopped, enabling emergency personnel to access hard-hit areas, Mayor Jose Carlos Cari told CNN Philippines.
Whipping up seas, Megi forced dozens of ports to suspend operations and stranded thousands of people at the start of Holy Week, one of the busiest travel periods of the year in the Philippines.