Philippines Storm Toll Soars
A typhoon-devastated town wrapped bodies in plastic bags after running out of coffins, as the death toll from the most powerful storm in years soared to at least 476 people.
More than 100 died in the town of Calauag, the victims of huge waves that crashed into their homes, little more than bamboo huts perched precariously on the southeastern shoreline of the main island of Luzon.
The death toll from Typhoon Angela, the worst storm to hit the Philippines in a decade, could rise much higher. More than 280 others were reported missing after the typhoon ravaged 25 provinces Thursday and Friday.
Today the storm was over the South China Sea and headed for Vietnam. It was expected to hit there sometime Monday.
Government officials warned of impending food shortages unless relief supplies are sent to the province of Quezon, where five other communities in addition to Calauag were hit by high waves at the height of the storm.
Angela destroyed millions of dollars worth of rice and coconut crops, and roads and bridges. Calauag, a fishing and farming town of 60,000 people, was directly in its path.
Many of the dead there were children, and at least 25 people are still missing from the town, about 100 miles southeast of Manila, the government’s social welfare agency said.
“Most of the bodies have been found floating along the shores,” a local radio station reporter said. The town has run out of coffins, and bodies are being wrapped in plastic bags and piled in a cemetery, the reporter said.
The Office of Civil Defense said 114 people were reported killed in the coastal town of Paracale in Camarines Norte province. At least 68 people died in Bicol, also on the southeastern end of Luzon, where Angela first stormed ashore Thursday. Most of the deaths there were from flash floods, others from landslides, officials said.
Two other towns hardest hit by the typhoon were Paracale and Jose Panganiban in Camarines Norte, just 40 miles east of Calauag.
Disaster officials said about 40 people were killed, some buried in landslides and some by a storm surge that hit coastal villages in both towns. Other provinces also reported deaths.
The typhoon flooded a large stretch of the main road connecting Manila to Bicol, a peninsular region at the southeastern end of northern Philippines.