Typhoon rips through Philippines, at least 527 dead

Rescuers scrambled today to reach scores of people left stranded by a powerful typhoon that sliced through the Philippines on the heels of a rainstorm that killed more than 420 people with possibly hundreds more missing.

Mudslides and flash floods earlier this week turned entire provinces facing the Pacific Ocean into a sea of chocolate-brown mud littered with bodies, uprooted trees, collapsed homes and bridges.

Typhoon Nanmadol swiped the same storm-hit north-east provinces – Quezon, Aurora, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur – yesterday.

As the magnitude of the disaster became clearer, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appealed to the nation to “come together … (and) reach out to those who need help”.

“Together as a nation, we will rise from the devastation,” Arroyo said in a televised statement. “We need one great heave to deliver the relief supplies, find the missing, rescue the isolated, feed the hungry and shelter the homeless.”

Exact causality figures were hard to establish immediately as soldiers, police and medical workers trekked with relief supplies across flood-ravaged roads and bare mountains to reach towns cut off by landslides.

“We’re getting reports of bodies still flowing in the rivers,” said air force spokesman Lt Col Restituto Padilla.

Police and civilian authorities report at least 422 killed and 177 missing from the powerful tropical storm on Monday, while the military said it received reports from local officials saying at least 479 were killed and 560 unaccounted for in only three towns in the worst-hit Quezon province. Five other provinces also witnessed fatalities.

Meanwhile, the Office of Civil Defence reported eight people died overnight from drowning, electrocution and falling trees when Nanmadol hit. As many as 168,000 people had been evacuated, it said.

Nanmadol made landfall along the north-east coast with sustained winds of 115 mph and gusts of up to 138 mph. It hit the northern half of the main island of Luzon at 21 mph before veering north towards Taiwan early today.

Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said the typhoon would bring heavy rains over the weekend and warned ships in the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait to be careful.

Schools and government offices remained closed today in Manila and the rest of the country. The coastguard allowed ferries and fishing boats to resume normal operations.

The Philippines is hit by about 20 storms and typhoons a year. A typhoon and another storm last week killed at least 87 people and left 80 others missing in the east.

The Philippine military said today rescuers had recovered 484 bodies from landslides and flash floods in an eastern province, bringing the toll from this week's powerful rainstorm to 527 people. At least 352 other people were still missing.

The military’s Chief of Staff Gen Efren Abu said 306 people were confirmed dead in Real town, 47 in Infanta and 131 in General Nakar, all in the worst-hit Quezon province, east of Manila. Forty-three others died in five other provinces, according to officials.