Severe Storm Trami wreaks havoc in the Philippines; at least 26 dead
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Philippine Coast Guard personnel rescuing a wheelchair-bound woman from her flooded home in hard-hit Bicol region on Oct 23.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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MANILA – Severe Storm Trami made landfall on Oct 24 on the Philippines’ north-eastern coast, dumping more rain on a hard-hit region in the country’s main island and raising the death toll to at least 26 so far.
More than 150,000 have fled their homes, as schools and government offices were shuttered across northern Philippines.
Over 5,000 passengers and dozens of vessels have been stranded at ports, the Philippine Coast Guard said.
Rescuers, meanwhile, raced to reach residents still stranded by flooding in the Bicol region in the southern part of Luzon island.
Most of those who died over the past few days drowned or were killed in landslides across Bicol, including Naga city, where 14 more people were reported to have died on Oct 24.
In Naga and in Nabua town, rescuers were using boats to reach residents still stranded on rooftops.
“They are seeking assistance through (Facebook) posts, and that’s how we learnt about them,” Major Luisa Calubaquib, the Bicol police spokeswoman, said.
According to the national weather service, the eye of Trami – known locally as Kristine – was passing over the northern Philippines’ mountainous interior at 8am with maximum sustained wind speeds of 95kmh.
It was predicted to exit the island within 12 hours.
More than 30,000 people were forced to evacuate in Bicol on Oct 23, police said, as “unexpectedly high” flooding turned streets into rivers.
Ms Lorie Dela Cruz, of the state weather bureau, said a month’s worth of rainfall had been dumped on the region in a 24-hour window from 8am on Oct 22 to the following morning, with Camarines Sur province and Albay province’s Legazpi city particularly hard hit.
On Oct 24, rescuers were searching for a missing fisherman after a boat sank in the waters off Bulacan province, west of Manila.
City workers collecting trash and debris on a road after pre-dawn floods subsided in the Philippine capital Manila on Oct 24.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
“Rescuing people was difficult since the wind was strong and was causing a strong current,” said Ms Geraldine Martinez, a rescue officer in Bulacan’s Obando municipality.
A day earlier, 11 people drowned in flood waters in Naga.
In Quezon province, south-east of the capital Manila, an elderly woman drowned, while a toddler was killed after falling into a flooded canal, police said.
Manila’s civil defence office reported that one person was killed by a falling tree branch.
Storms and typhoons are common around the region at this time of year.
However, a recent study showed that they are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Philippines or its surrounding waters each year, damaging homes and infrastructure as well as killing dozens of people. AFP, REUTERS
