PHILIPPINES: Rescuers continue to struggle to find survivors from landslides and floods which killed up to 600 people in northern Philippines. The same region is due to be hit by a typhoon in just over 24 hours.
Residents of coastal towns worst hit by heavy rains early this week say food and water are running low as rescuers are forced to carry supplies on foot after roads were cut off and bad weather grounded rescue helicopters.
Meteorological officials said typhoon Nanmadol with winds of 175 k.p.h. at its centre was gaining strength and was expected to hit the east coast late today or early tomorrow.
The President, Ms Gloria Arroyo, has ordered a nationwide crackdown on the illegal logging believed to have worsened the slides and has told officials to do everything possible to protect people from the coming typhoon.
The isolated location of the towns and worsening weather conditions made them inaccessible by sea or air, forcing hundreds of residents to wade for miles through deep mud for help.
The Interior Secretary, Mr Angelo Reyes, said up to 600 people may have been killed in landslides and floods which hit several areas in the northern island of Luzon.
He said 412 people were reported dead, 63 injured and 177 missing.
In Real, rescuers used sticks and bare hands to search for friends and relatives who had taken shelter in a large building which then collapsed.
Ms Neri Amparo, an official at the National Disaster Co-ordinating Centre, said more than 70 people could have been buried alive when boulders swept by mudslides smashed into the building.Decades of logging have cut forest cover in the Philippines from 34 per cent in 1970 to 18 percent now, according to the Environmental Science for Social Change, a local activist group.
The government imposed a selective log ban after widespread floods in the early 1990s, but numerous "crackdowns" have failed to halt a trade worth millions of dollars a year to smugglers and corrupt politicians.
"Illegal logging must now be placed in the most serious crimes against our people," Ms Arroyo said yesterday.