Death toll from Philippines storm rises above 1,000
the death toll in the Philippines from a tropical storm has risen to well above
1,000 on Wednesday. a state of national calamity has been declared on
the Island on Mindanao, which I think is where our dear friend Kiko is from.
The storm known locally as " Sendong " has left tens of thousands of people
homeless as aid agencies struggle to deal with a growing humanitarian crisis.
The Red Cross say that hundreds of people remain unaccounted for as whole
Villages have been swept away.
8 Answers
Climate change is not a reality, just seasonlly bad weather! -
I'll bet that there were those who said the same thing at the dawn of the last ice age.
Ray, was your picture from yesterday's word of the day from this disaster?
Really very sad. I'm in Manila and I saw the newsfeeds from Mindanao stream in. So horrible to see it unfold.
A woman was today caring for her baby born on the roof of a submerged medical centre amid the devastation of Typhoon Washi, which killed more than 1,000 in the Philippines last weekend.
Annaliza Tumanda gave birth to her daughter, Aizee, at the height of the storm and flash floods that destroyed their home in the southern region of Mindanao.
Today she was at a government run shelter, where aid workers are battling to head off a humanitarian disaster in the wake of the tempest.
'With God's will, we survived,' she told the Associated Press. 'It was like a miracle.'
Flash floods had forced Mrs Tumanda, her husband and their three children - aged between three and eight - to flee their home in the city of Cagayan do Oro late on Friday night.
In the lashing rain and fierce winds, the family swam through the floodwaters to a nearby three storey house, the strain and shock sending Mrs Tumanda into labour.
Rescuers from the Filipino police were able to reach them in the disaster zone on Saturday morning, and brought her through the devastation to the roof of a nearby medical centre.
On top of the submerged clinic, Mrs Tumanda gave birth to a healthy 6.6lb baby girl. She is now just another of the 640,000 who have had their lives ripped apart by the disaster, according to United Nations estimates.
Authorities in the port cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, on the island of Mindanao, where sleeping families were swept to sea from coastal slums, said unclaimed corpses piling up in mortuaries were posing health risks and had to be interred.
Oh I hope our Rikko is okay... and just as an aside - Rikko come back! I miss you!
MANILA, Philippines — National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) Executive Director Benito Ramos said the death toll from tropical storm “Sendong,” one of the worst to hit the country, breached the 1,000 mark on Tuesday.
The death toll has already surpassed the 747 deaths during the onslaught of “Ondoy” in 2009.
The toll rose sharply as the bodies of people who were swept out to sea were recovered.
“They were underwater for the first three days but now, in their state of decomposition, they are bloated and floating to the surface,” said Ramos.
A British national was among those killed by the storm, Britain’s Foreign Office said.
Ramos said they have lost count of the missing but officers involved in retrieval operations said more than 900 people remained unaccounted for three days after “Sendong” washed away villages in southern Philippines.
The NDRRMC, in its 6 a.m. bulletin, also said the number of injured was pegged at 1,582, while the number of affected population from 260 villages in 30 towns and eight cities in 13 provinces is now 63,079 families or 338,415 people.
Of the total number of affected population, 9,743 families or 42,733 people are now being served in 62 evacuation centers.
According to the NDRRMC, “Sendong’s” wrath was felt in Regions 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, Caraga, and Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
As the Philippines begins to bury more than a 1,000 disaster victims in mass graves, Philippine President Benigno Aquino has ordered an investigation into last weekend's flash flood and landslide, including looking at the role of illegal logging. Officials have pointed to both climate change and vast deforestation as likely exacerbating the disaster.
"We have no desire to engage in finger-pointing or to assign blame at a time like this. Yet, we have an obligation to find out exactly what has happened," Aquino said, according to the Christian Science Monitor
