Saturday, December 02, 2006 198 killed, 260 still missing
MANILA - Typhoon Reming smashed into the Bicol Region with heavy rains and winds gusting up to 265 kilometers per hour, spawning flash floods and sending walls of muddy volcanic ash and red-hot boulders crashing down on several villages, officials said yesterday.
The national Office of Civil Defense reported 198 people were killed and 260 were missing.
Fernando Gonzalez, governor of worst-hit Albay province, said the figures included 109 people who died in mudslides on the slopes of the Mayon volcano that also injured 130.
“The disaster covered almost every corner of this province—rampaging floods, falling trees, damaged houses,” Gonzalez said.
With power and phone lines downed by powerful winds, helicopters were carrying out aerial surveillance of cut-off areas.
Officials estimated that the storm had affected some 22,000 people.
“Our rescue teams are overstretched rescuing people on rooftops,” Glen Rabonza, head of the Office of Civil Defense, said after President Arroyo was briefed on the storm’s devastation.
The typhoon weakened yesterday as it moved north of Mindoro island with sustained winds of 150 kph and gusts of up to 185 kph as it headed toward the South China Sea.
Gonzalez said seven or eight villages had been hit by the wet lava flows that rumbled down Mayon’s slopes for three hours Thursday.
Reming, international code name Durian, is the fourth “super typhoon” to hit the Philippines in as many months.
In late September, typhoon Milenyo left 230 people dead and missing in and around Manila. (AP)
