All ruined: Residents salvaging belongings in front of their house after Fung-wong hit the coast of Alacan, Pangasinan. — Reuters
Rescuers using backhoes and chainsaws began digging the country out from the devastation of Typhoon Fung-wong, as floodwaters receded in hundreds of villages and the storm’s death toll climbed to 25.
Fung-wong, which displaced 1.4 million people, had weakened into a severe tropical storm even as it began dumping rain on neighbouring Taiwan ahead of a landfall expected today.
It was the second major typhoon to hit the Philippines in days, after Typhoon Kalmaegi last week rampaged through the archipelago’s central islands on its way to killing 232 people, according to the latest figures.
In coastal Isabela province, a town of 6,000 remained cut off from help yesterday, a civil defence spokesperson said, with parts of neighbouring Nueva Vizcaya province similarly isolated.
“We are struggling to access these areas,” said Cagayan Valley region spokesperson Alvin Ayson, who added that landslides had prevented rescuers from reaching affected residents.
Others were “now in evacuation centres, but when they get back to their homes, their rebuilding will take time and face challenges”.
He added that a 10-year-old boy in Nueva Vizcaya was killed by one of the landslides.
The child was among 25 deaths recorded in a new death toll released yesterday by national civil defence deputy administrator Rafaelito Alejandro.
In a phone interview, Alejandro said even “early recovery” efforts would take weeks.
“The greatest challenge for us right now is the restoration of lifelines, road clearing, and restoration of power and communication lines, but we are working on it.”
In hardest-hit Catanduanes island, issues with the water supply could take up to 20 days to fix, he said.
In Cagayan, part of the Philippines’ largest river basin, provincial rescue chief Rueli Rapsing said on Monday that a flash flood in neighbouring Apayao province had caused the Chico River to burst its banks, sending nearby residents scrambling for higher ground.
“We received reports ... that some people were already on their roofs,” he said, adding most had been rescued.
Mark Lamer, 24, a resident of Cagayan’s Tuao town, said it was the “strongest typhoon I have ever experienced”.
“We didn’t think the water would reach us. It had never risen this high previously,” he said.
More than 5,000 people were safely evacuated before the overflowing Cagayan River buried the small city of Tuguegarao about 30km away.
“Tuguegarao is underwater now,” Rapsing said.
Fung-wong’s death toll rose on Monday after five-year-old twins and an elderly man in two northern Luzon provinces were reported killed in landslides.
The two children were killed at around 2am as their family slept inside their home, according to Ayson, the regional spokesperson.
Seasonal monsoon rains had saturated the soil around the dwelling before Fung-wong struck, he said. — AFP
