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Saturday, May 13, 2006
Ferry capsizes: 6 dead, 5 missing
Six people died and five others were missing after a small ferry capsized in a storm, the Coast Guard reported.
Thirteen people were rescued after the MV May Anne went down in rough waters off the island of Masbate.
Tropical storm Caloy slammed into the country overnight, causing flash floods and landslides that forced the evacuation of hundreds of villagers, disaster relief officials said yesterday.
The storm, the first to hit the country this year, left more than 6,000 people stranded in ports in the central Visayas and eastern Bicol regions after the coast guard suspended ferry operations.
Families from several villages in the town of Sogod in Southern Leyte were also evacuated after heavy rains caused a landslide that cut off a highway, Gov. Rosette Lerias told AFP.
At least 11 villages with about 1,000 families in Sogod had been isolated, with one vital bridge also impassable, Lerias said.
Another 40 families in the town of Macrohon were also evacuated after heavy flooding, she said.
“It has been raining really hard, and we had about 130 millimeters of rainfall yesterday alone,” Lerias said, adding that normal rainfall according to forecasters should be 550 millimeters in a week.
“We are working very closely with the national government in Manila and we have all the supplies we need,” she said.
She said parts of Leyte as well as the entire province of Albay in the Bicol region were experiencing blackouts.
The storm came almost three months after torrential rains caused the collapse of a mountainside that engulfed the Leyte village of Guinsaugon, leaving more than 1,000 people buried alive under a massive mudslide.
Nerry Amparo, head of operations in Manila’s Office of Civil Defense, said field reports coming in indicated zero casualties so far in the latest storm.
Storm warnings were hoisted in some 23 provinces and islands, including Metro Manila, where rain has fallen since Thursday.
The storm had slightly weakened as it made landfall overnight, and was expected to dump more rain in metropolitan Manila as its eye passes Friday night, the weather bureau said.
Continuing with its northwest path with maximum sustained winds of 95 kilometers per hour, Caloy was forecast to hit areas in the main island of Luzon today before subsiding Monday.
Flag carrier Philippine Airlines and two other domestic carriers cancelled nine flights to the Visayas and Bicol, but the announcement came late and many passengers were stuck in the airport.
However, passenger and cargo ships bound for Leyte and Southern Samar were already permitted to leave the Cebu port after weather authorities lifted public storm signals in the Eastern Visayas area, the Cebu Coast Guard (CG) yesterday said.
Ferries
More than 1,000 passengers were stranded Thursday in Cebu City pier after 17 inter-island vessels were barred from sailing in the wake of tropical storm Caloy.
This include the seven passenger ferries bound for Leyte and Samar that were prevented from leaving port since Wednesday, said a CG desk officer.
The weather bulletin showed that signal number 1 was hoisted in Mindoro Occidental, Lubang Island, Calamian Group of Islands, Catanduanes, Camarines Norte, Metro Manila and the rest of Quezon province.
It included Pulilio Island and the provinces of Rizal, Laguna, Batangas, Cavite, Bulacan, Northern Samar and Northern Panay.
Still affected by storm signal number 2 were Sorsogon, Ticao Island, Masbate, Romblon, Mindo-ro Oriental, Marinduque, Southern Quezon and Camarines Sur.
An average of 19 storms and typhoons strike the Philippines every year, killing hundreds of people through floods, landslides, and other hazards induced by strong winds and heavy rain. (AFP/Sunnex)/GC)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (May 13, 2006 issue)
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