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Philippines tropical storm toll climbs to 44: officials
MANILA, Dec 23, 2017 (BSS/AFP) – The death toll from a tropical storm
that struck the southern Philippines has risen to 44 as mudslides wiped out a
mountain village and ravaged another town, officials said Saturday.
Nineteen deaths were reported near the town of Tubod on Friday on
Mindanao, the archipelago nation’s second-largest island, where Tropical
Storm Tembin unleashed flash floods and mudslides that erased a remote
village from the map, police said.
“The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no
longer there,” Tubod police officer Gerry Parami told AFP by telephone.
Police, soldiers and volunteers used shovels to dig through mud and debris
in a bid to recover bodies in Dalama, a farming village of about 2,000 people
near Tubod, Parami added.
Boulders brought down by flash floods also buried around 40 houses in the
town of Piagapo, killing at least 10 people, civil defence officer Saripada
Pacasum told AFP.
“We’ve sent rescuers but they’re making little progress due to the rocks,”
he said.
The Philippines is pummelled by 20 major storms each year on average, many
of them deadly. But Mindanao, home to 20 million people, is rarely hit by
these cyclones.
Eight other people were killed by floods elsewhere on Lanao del Sur
province, Pacasum said.
Police said three people each died from landslides in the provinces of
Bukidnon and Zamboanga Sibugay, while one fatality was also reported in
Iligan city.
Four people were listed as missing after being buried in landslides or
being swept away by floodwaters, while more than 12,000 have fled their
homes, they added.
After slicing across Mindanao on Friday, Tembin sped west over the Sulu
Sea with gusts of 95 kilometres an hour.
It was forecast to smash into the tip of the western island of Palawan
late Saturday, the state weather service said.
Tembin struck less than a week after Tropical Storm Kai-Tak devastated the
central Philippines, leaving 54 dead and 24 missing.
The deadliest typhoon to hit the country was Haiyan, which left 7,350
people dead and destroyed entire towns in heavily populated areas of the
central Philippines in November 2013.
BSS/AFP/MRI/1152 hrs