mm-news-@dmin Taiwan rescuers battle thick mud to look for those who went missing amid the storm
The Philippines evacuated hundreds of thousands of people and confirmed at least three deaths on Friday. As a severe tropical storm battered the country, it was still feeling the effects of Super Typhoon Ragasa.
Civil defence officials in southern Luzon’s Bicol region said Severe Tropical Storm Bualoi killed three people. As it swept west-northwest with sustained winds of 110 kilometres per hour, it toppled trees and collapsed walls.
In one province, evacuees took cover under pews after the storm ripped. The roof of the church where they were sheltering.
“Around 4 am, the wind destroyed the door, the windows, and the ceiling of the church,” Jerome Martinez said. A municipal engineer in southern Luzon island’s Masbate province told AFP.
“That’s one of the strongest winds I’ve ever experienced,” he said, adding that some children had suffered minor injuries requiring stitches.
“I think more people will still have to evacuate because the storm destroyed many houses and blew away many roofs. They are now blocking the streets and roads.”
At a Friday press briefing, civil defence official Bernardo Alejandro said authorities have evacuated around 400,000 people.
“We are clearing many big trees and toppled electric posts because many roads are impassable,” Frandell Anthony Abellera, a rescuer in Bicol’s Masbate City, told AFP by phone.
“The rain was strong, but the wind was stronger.”
Videos shared on social media and verified by AFP showed people using boats or trudging through waist-deep water to navigate flooded streets further south in the central Philippines’ Visayas islands.
Public anger
An average of 20 storms and typhoons hit the Philippines each year, keeping millions of people in disaster-prone areas trapped in constant poverty.
Scientists warn that storms are becoming more powerful as the world warms due to the effects of human-driven climate change.
Authorities warned Thursday of a “high risk of life-threatening storm surge” of up to three meters (10 feet) with the coming storm.
Thousands also remain displaced in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Ragasa, which passed over the country’s far northern end and killed at least nine people earlier in the week.
The storms come as public anger seethes over a scandal involving bogus flood-control projects believed to have cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
Taiwan rescuers look for the missing
Rescue workers in Taiwan battled through thick mud on Friday, looking for 11 people still missing. Super Typhoon Ragasa this week sent a wall of water into a small town on the east coast.
The flooding’s death toll held steady at 14.
The heavy rains in Hualien County caused a so-called barrier lake in the mountains to overflow on Tuesday. And release a thick sludge of water and mud on the town of Guangfu.
While the flood waters have receded, the dark grey mud continues to blanket large parts of the area, creating problems for residents and rescuers alike.
Rescue workers, sometimes wading in mud up to their waists, have been cutting holes in the roofs of buildings to check for missing people.
A man who gave his family name as Hwang said he was still looking for his elder sister’s body.
He said, “She died in the house because mud filled it, and there was no way to get her out.”
Many of the deaths occurred on the first floors of houses after people, often elderly, were unable to follow government orders to move upstairs and out of the way.
Huang Ju-hsing, 88, has been trapped inside his second-floor home after the flooding blocked access to his family-run grocery store downstairs.
“There was no time to escape. We told him to hurry up and go upstairs,” said his wife, Chang Hsueh-mei. Who has been able to scramble over the wreckage downstairs and get outside?
“When you’re faced with an emergency, you suddenly find the courage to do anything,” said Chang. 78, after climbing through aisles of fallen objects to reach her husband.
Mountainous, sparsely populated, and largely rural, Hualien is one of Taiwan’s top tourist destinations due to its wild beauty.
What to do about the barrier lake, formed by earlier typhoons, and which has now shrunk. The size of only 12% of what it was before the disaster remains an unresolved issue.
Barrier lakes are formed when rocks, landslides, or other natural blockages form a dam across a river. Normally, in a valley, blocking and holding back water, hindering, or even stopping natural drainage.
The government has ruled out using explosives to break through the bank holding up the water. Fearing it could bring more landslides and worsen the situation.
The disaster has not impacted Taiwan’s crucial semiconductor industry, located on the island’s west coast.
