Legazpi (AsiaNews) – The death toll of Typhoon Durian continues to rise after its devastating passage through the eastern Philippines on 1 December. According to information from Civil Protection sources, confirmed to AsiaNews by local Caritas leaders, there are at least 1,049 victims who are either dead or missing.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo this morning declared a “state of national calamity” and authorised the immediate allocation of 20 million dollars to restore basic services in areas hit by the typhoon, which also caused mudslides. 

Caritas in the Philippines said: “Four provinces have been very badly hit, including Bicol and the southern Tacalog province. The aid situation is still in its early stages because an emergency plan is impossible due to the sheer impossibility of communicating with most areas affected by the typhoon.”

The Catholic organization has anyhow started to gather “emergency shelters, food, drinking water and medicines: alas, we cannot more specific in our rescue efforts.”

The Philippine National Disaster Coordinating Council said 450 people have been certified as dead while 599 are missing. More than one million people have been affected by the natural disaster, with damage to property estimated to be around five and a half million dollars. The typhoon, which today reached the Vietnamese coasts, hit hardest those villages surrounding Mount Mayon, an active volcano situated around 320km south of Manila. Here, torrential rains poured down, provoking mudslides and boulders the size of cars that hit rural communities.

Soldiers, miners and a Spanish rescue team armed with rescue dogs are digging in the mud to extract bodies. Sixty bodies were found in one chapel where residents ran to seek refuge and which was later destroyed by the mudslides.  Even the New People’s Army, a communist group that has been battling the government for decades, has declared a ceasefire to contribute to aid efforts.

The national Caritas has prepared an international appeal for all donors in Catholic circles, which will be circulated tomorrow: “We hope to receive generous and especially rapid aid: the situation is deteriorating at an incredible rate.”