Grim search as typhoon kills hundreds in Philippines

DARAGA, Philippines, Dec 2: Distraught survivors searched piles of bodies for the faces of their loved ones in the central Philippines today after landslides triggered by Typhoon Durian left hundreds dead.

Driving rain and winds of up to 225 kph dislodged tonnes of mud and boulders from the slopes of Mount Mayon, an active volcano about 320 km south of Manila, on Thursday smothering nearby villages.

The governor of worst-hit Albay province said a 6-foot high wall of water had crashed down Mayon's slopes.

''We haven't seen anything like this perhaps in hundreds of years. We lost everything,'' Fernando Gonzales told Reuters, adding 100 people had been killed by the torrent of water.

In the rural Bicol region, the office of the civil defence said 208 people had been killed and 261 were missing. Officials said the toll was rising sharply as rescue workers, some using their bare hands, pulled corpses and body parts from the mud.

''It's already in the hundreds just covering four areas,'' Cedric Daep, head of the provincial disaster coordinating council told Reuters. ''Right now we are on retrieval operations. We do not believe there are any survivors.'' Nearly 45,000 people were left homeless and whole communities isolated as power lines and phone links were knocked out, bridges washed away and roads blocked by debris. Livelihoods were lost as fruit trees were uprooted and rice harvests destroyed.

Durian moved into the South China Sea yesterday after affecting nearly 800,000 people in the Philippines and was expected to weaken into a tropical storm before hitting Vietnam on Monday.

PILES OF CORPSES

In the town of Daraga, bordering Mount Mayon, more than 50 bodies were stacked in front of an overflowing funeral parlour. The undertaker estimated there were around 150 corpses in all. Photographs of the missing lined the town square and men and women, many clutching handkerchiefs over their faces, searched for relatives among the dead.

''My siblings, my mother, they are gone. My niece is dead and at the plaza there are so many dead people,'' said one woman, sobbing in the morning sunshine.

Communities around Mayon thought they had escaped catastrophe in September when the volcano subsided after months of spewing flaming lava and rocks, raising fears of a major eruption and forcing thousands of residents to evacuate.

The debris left behind proved deadly when Durian struck.

''I clung to a coconut tree because the current was strong,'' Ramon Valderama, who lost his wife and son in the chaos, told local radio. ''I was swept to sea. Big rocks were hitting me. I could only cry because I was helpless.'' Thousands of survivors crammed into schools and churches, and disaster agencies called for fresh water, rice and medicines.

Miners were due at the disaster zones to help soldiers and rescue workers dig through the mud.

Named after a pungent and spiky Asian fruit, Durian was the fourth to hit the Philippines in three months. Forecasters expect one more before the end of the year.

In September, 213 people were killed when Typhoon Xangsane battered the north and centre of the country, leaving millions without electricity or running water for days.

Xangsane also killed dozens in Vietnam.

REUTERS