MORE THAN 650 people were killed in the southern Philippines over the weekend as storms triggered flash foods, leaving many villages isolated and out of reach of disaster relief agencies.
Rescuers were searching for more than 800 people missing after Typhoon Washi struck late on Friday night, when most people were asleep, devastating eight provinces on Mindanao island, which is unaccustomed to major storms. The deluge stripped mountainsides of logs and foliage, overturned cars and forced residents to seek safety on their rooftops.
Cagayan de Oro and nearby Iligan were the worst hit by the torrents of water which swept through villages.
Most of the dead or missing were women and children, said Philippine Red Cross secretary general Gwendolyn Pang. She said that most of the missing were in the two cities.
The Philippines is well used to typhoons and tropical storms, with about 30 typhoons hitting every year, but they tend to strike in other parts of the archipelago, not in Mindanao.
“It’s overwhelming. We didn’t expect these many dead,” said Benito Ramos, who leads the government’s disaster response agency.
He said authorities were continuing to find bodies of those who had been swept out to sea, and that body bags and coffins were in short supply.
The Philippines defence secretary Voltaire Gazmin and top military officials flew to Cagayan de Oro and Iligan to help co-ordinate search-and-rescue efforts. Thousands of soldiers, police officers and reservists had been mobilised for rescue efforts.
Coming so close to Christmas, the disaster has brought an outpouring of goodwill, with soldiers in the south saying they would donate food to victims of the flood.
Washi was moving towards the South China Sea yesterday, which allowed rescue agencies to step up their efforts.