Rescuers search for storm victims

Death toll rises to 200 in Philippines as 70,000 forced from their homes

MANILA - Rescuers in the Philippines continued to search on Sunday for survivors of a tropical storm that triggered floods and landslides, which left about 200 dead, scores missing and thousands homeless, most of whom apparently ignored warnings to move to safety.

Misery in the largely Christian country was compounded by the deaths of dozens of people in a shopping mall blaze, officials said on Sunday, Christmas Eve.

The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons a year and warnings are routinely issued, but the level of destruction wreaked by Tropical Storm Tembin on the southern island of Mindanao from late on Friday came as a surprise.

"The figure could increase as we continue to received reports from the field as the weather improves," said a police spokesman on Mindanao, Superintendent Lemuel Gonda, referring to the death toll.

"We are slowly restoring power and communications in affected areas."

Disaster officials said 159 people were listed as missing, while about 70,000 had been forced from their homes.

Soldiers and police joined emergency workers and volunteers to search for survivors and victims, clear debris and restore power and communications.

Rescue officials said many villagers had ignored warnings to leave coastal areas and move away from riverbanks, and got swept away when flash floods and landslides struck.

The storm was moving west on Sunday, over some outlying Philippine islands and the South China Sea toward southern Vietnam, at a speed of about 20 km/h.

It intensified into a typhoon with winds of 120 km/h as it moved out of the Philippine area of responsibility, the national meteorological agency said.

The United Nations was ready to help the Philippines, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

Last week, 46 people were killed when a typhoon hit central parts of the Philippines. In 2013, super typhoon Haiyan killed nearly 8,000 people and left 200,000 families homeless.

The southern region of the Philippines was hit by another disaster on the weekend when fire swept through a shopping mall in Davao City, killing at least 37 people, most of them workers at a call center, the city government said.

The vice-mayor of the city, Paolo Duterte, said the chance of survival for any of the 37 people missing at the NCC Mall was "zero".

The fire broke out on Saturday at a furniture shop on the mall's third level and quickly engulfed an outsourcing business on the top floor, said a spokeswoman for the city government.

The cause was not known but an investigation was being launched as authorities searched for the bodies of the victims.

President Duterte and his daughter, Sara Duterte, who is mayor of the city, visited the scene late on Saturday to meet survivors and the anxious relatives of the missing people.

Reuters - Xinhua - AFP

(China Daily 12/25/2017 page12)