MANILA (SE): The death toll in the Philippines from Tropical Storm Megi [Agaton] rose to 115 as of April 14 with scores missing and feared dead, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council Philippines, ABS-CBN reported, as rescuers dug up more bodies with bare hands and backhoes in mud-crushed villages.
The storm—the strongest to hit the archipelago this year—swept across the central regions of the country, including Eastern and Western Visayas, and the Davao Region, with most of the casualties occuring in the province of Leyte, where a series of landslides devastated communities.
At least 86 people were killed and dozens injured in vegetable, rice and coconut-growing villages around Baybay City over the weekend of April 10, ABS-CBN reported local authorities as saying. At least 117 are still missing.
According to a report from UCAN, 26 people died and around 150 were missing in the coastal village of Pilar, which is part of Abuyog municipality, after a torrent of mud and earth on April 12 pushed houses into the sea and buried most of the settlement, authorities said.
“I have to be honest, we are no longer expecting survivors,” said Abuyog mayor, Lemuel Traya, who added that emergency personnel were now focused on the difficult task of retrieving bodies.
About 250 people were in evacuation centres after being rescued by boat after roads were cut by landslides, he said. Several villagers were also in hospital.
A rumbling sound like “a helicopter” alerted Ara Mae Canuto, to the landslide hurtling towards her family’s home in Pilar. She tried to outrun it but was swept into the water and nearly drowned.
Our dead relatives are all in the morgue, but there will be no time for a wake to mourn them because the mayor told us they smell bad
“I swallowed dirt and my ears and nose are full of mud,” Canuto said from her hospital bed. Her father died and her mother has not been found.
Aerial photos showed a wide stretch of mud that had swept down a hill of coconut trees and engulfed Bunga village, where only a few rooftops poked through the now-transformed landscape, UCAN reported.
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“We were told to be on alert because a storm was coming, but they did not directly tell us we needed to evacuate,” said farmworker, Loderica Portarcos, who lost 17 relatives and a friend in the landslide. She braved heat and humidity as she advised a backhoe operator where to dig for three bodies still embedded in the soft soil, which had started to smell of rotting flesh.
“Our dead relatives are all in the morgue, but there will be no time for a wake to mourn them because the mayor told us they smell bad,” she said.
Photos posted by the Bureau of Fire Protection on Facebook showed buildings crushed or turned over by the force of the landslide and debris in the water.
“We are using fiberglass boats, and there are steel bars exposed in the sea, so it’s very difficult,” Traya said, adding that the ground was unstable and “very risky.”
Pope Francis, having been informed of the storm’s destruction, expressed solidarity with the victims, the Vatican said.
“He also offers the assurance of prayers for the dead, injured and displaced as well as those engaged in recovery efforts,” the statement said. “His Holiness willingly invokes upon all the Filipino people God’s blessings.”
Whipping up seas, Megi forced dozens of ports to temporarily suspend operations, stranding thousands of people at the start of Holy Week, one of the busiest travel periods of the year in the Philippines.
The storm struck four months after Super Typhoon Rai [Odette] devastated swathes of the country, killing more than 400 and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.
Meanwhile on April 14, Philstar.com reported that the Philippine Department of Energy had imposed a 15-day price freeze on LPG and kerosene in areas hit by by the typhoon.
