Manila (AsiaNews) At least 200 dead is the toll of a devastating flood in the eastern Philippines. The flood provoked a mudslide in the villages of Liloan, Maasin and San Francisco, in the Southern Leyte province. Bodies of 83 victims were found, while another 120 have been declared missing. But regional authorities believe the number of deaths will increase beyond all prior estimates.
The disaster occurred after days of heavy rain. Entire families died of suffocation in the mudslide. Emergency crews are collaborating with citizens to recover bodies of victims and to save any remaining survivors. In the village of San Francisco, an elderly 89 year-old man and a child aged 14 were saved thanks to a naturally formed air pocket. In the majority of cases death took its toll immediately, as corpses of children were found in still their mothers' arms. Meanwhile, bad weather is still raging, roads are flooded and telephone lines are down, making rescue activities difficult. Villagers are using shovels, wooden planks and their bare hands to remove mud, which in certain cases has buried entire homes. Also many churches were damaged, where Christmas ceremonies and activites were being organized. At yesterday's Sunday masses, churchgoers across the country united in prayer for flood victims.
Rescuers still haven't reached every village. In the Ricardo region, for example, there are still 3 villages which remain isolated.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo conveyed a request to the United States for expert rescue forces and special all-weather transport vehicles. La Arroyo said she would have visited the area, but had to cancel her flight to Leyte due to the inclement weather threatening typhoon status. The president also criticized the region's history of savage deforestation, the cause of the giant landslides.
According to the Center for International Forestry Research, at the end of the 1970s forests covered 34% of the Philippine territory; by the end of the 1980s, that figure was reduced to 23%, causing huge erosions of land. Weather is also blamed for the disaster. In 1991 a flood in the Northern Leyte province caused 8000 deaths and left 50,000 homeless.
The Philippines, a country between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer, is hit by an average of at least 19 major storms and typhoons per year.
Fr. Giovanni Re, PIME missionary in the Philippines, told Asianews: "Such disasters and sad events occur often in the Philippines, but not of this magnitude. What's more, the interesting thing is that this flood occurred at a time usually marked by the dry season."
