Rescuers dig with bare hands after typhoon

Rescuers, some using their bare hands, combed mud-stricken villages on the slopes of the Philippines’ Mayon volcano today, five days after a typhoon left a trail of destruction estimated to have killed more than 1,000 people.

The official figures recorded 425 dead, 507 injured and 599 missing, but Senator Richard Gordon, head of the local Red Cross, said he believed more than 1,000 had died in the thousands of homes buried under five feet of volcanic debris and mud.

As the extent of the disaster became clear, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a state of national calamity, allowing the government to more rapidly release funds needed to bolster search-and-rescue efforts.

“We are no strangers to this kind of tragedy and we have always been able to recover and become stronger,” she said.

Arroyo said she instructed the department of the environment to step up the mapping of all hazardous areas like Mayon to help forewarn communities of possible danger.

“We must not leave things to fatal luck when we can develop the tools to prevent harm,” she said.

Fernando Gonzalez, governor of the worst-hit Albay province, said the ground was too slippery for mechanical diggers and rescuers had to dig with their hands and shovels to retrieve bodies.

“There’s no choice but to dig by hand,” he told Radio DZBB. “Practically speaking, we are not very optimistic we’ll find survivors.”

Typhoon Durian, which hit the Bicol region with winds of up to 165 mph and torrential rains on Thursday, was the fourth major storm to hit the Philippines in four months.

It buffeted the Mayon volcano with so much wind and rain that ash and boulders cascaded down in walls of black mud, swamping entire villages.

Many bodies, mangled and unidentified, were quickly buried in mass graves to prevent them from decomposing in the tropical heat.

All but two dozen of the deaths occurred in Albay, with 165 in the town of Guinobatan, swamped by floodwaters in the foothills of Mayon volcano, south-east of the capital, Manila.

Four other provinces reported fatalities, but accurate casualty figures were hard to come by because power lines and phone services were down. In some places, searchers found only body parts.

In Albay’s battered capital of Legazpi City, residents lined up to buy drinking water, petrol and food.

Yesterday, officials quickly scotched rumours of an impending tsunami that had spread panic through one community.

Glen Rabonza, an official helping to oversee disaster-response efforts, said soldiers and miners were helping to search for missing villagers in Albay, where 52 tonnes of medicine, body bags and other aid had been flown in.

Health secretary Francisco Duque warned residents to boil water before drinking it to prevent the possible spread of cholera and diarrhoea.