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Sunday, May 14, 2006
Storm compels Asean meet transfer
MANILA -- Here's a scenario local organizers of the Asean Ministers' Summit would not wish to happen in Cebu: Bad weather forcing the use of another venue.
Tropical storm Caloy (known internationally as Chanchu) forced officials Saturday to shift an annual retreat of Southeast Asian economic ministers from the resort island of Boracay to Manila instead.
Senior officials of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) made the decision after considering strong winds, rough seas and power outages on Boracay.
At the two-day informal meeting, which begins Monday, the ministers are to discuss ways to accelerate the integration of the region's 10 economies and create a European-style economic community by 2020.
In Cebu, Governor Gwendolyn Garcia said "everything is still fluid," but Asean summit organizers are looking at having the "informal meetings" of heads of Asean member-states in a chapel in Shangri-la's Mactan Island Resort.
"The Asean covers so many things. There are still other activities so having the heads of state meeting in Shangri-la will not in any way diminish the importance of the Cebu International Convention Center or the historical value that is expected to get out of the summit," Garcia said Saturday.
Organizers will also need the cooperation of the weather come December.
Tropical storm Caloy gained strength Saturday as it sliced through the central Philippines, leaving at least 23 people dead.
It also flooded many areas and forced the suspension of ferry services. One ferry carrying more than 700 passengers to Manila ran aground Saturday, but caused no injuries or serious damage.
The Coast Guard said 21 bodies have been recovered after a small outrigger ferry sank in rough waters off Masbate, raising to 23 the number of people killed by the storm.
Coast Guard spokesman Joseph Coyme said 18 other passengers of the motorboat Mae An have been rescued since Friday, when the ferry operator ignored a general warning from authorities stopping all small vessels from sailing.
The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) has identified eight of the 18 fatalities as Chaway Alburo; Dodong Alburo; Selsa Fajardo; Jenny Tagayom; Jenelyn Tagayom; Elpidio Quilong-Quilong; Divine Quilong-Quilong and Vina Armedes. . Authorities were still exerting efforts to establish the identities of the 10 other fatalities.
The 19th and 20th fatalities were Louie Rubian of Sta. Lucia village in Nagcalan, Laguna, who was hit by a falling coconut tree; and Cristituto Bravat of Toboso town in Negros Occidental who died after his fishing boat sunk in rough waters off Negros Island.
As of 2 p.m., the NDCC said eight victims of the Mae-Anne sinking remained missing.
The NDCC also said it has counted 5,783 families or 28,213 persons in the Eastern Visayas, Bicol, and Southern Tagalog regions as displaced by the weather disturbance.
Power shock
He said the motorized ferry left at dawn to evade authorities, and left no list of passengers that were headed to nearby Sorsogon Province.
Elsewhere, a couple were electrocuted Friday when a swaying coconut tree severed an electric line in Manapla town on central Negros Island.
A swollen river broke a dike early Saturday and submerged four villages under waist-deep water on Mindoro.
Manila radio stations, quoting local officials, reported the broken dike outside Calapan City, capital of Mindoro Oriental.
The Office of Civil Defense in Manila said it could not immediately confirm the report.
Coyme said the ferry MV Filipina Princess took shelter off Tablas Island southeast of Mindoro, but ran aground in rough waters.
Nestor Ponteres, port captain of the ferry owned Sulpicio Lines, said the craft left Cebu for Manila with 713 passengers and more than 70 crew Friday morning. It anchored in Tablas' Carmen Bay to shelter from the storm around 1 a.m. Saturday, but winds and waves dragged it into shallow waters about three hours later.
Two other vessels sank but there were no reports of casualties. The two ship were the mv Northern Samar, which sunk while moored at the Tabaco pier in Albay after huge waves swamped the boat, and the fb Mark Cris Ra, capsized 150 yards off the Botongan pier in Estancia, Iloilo.
8T stranded
Nearly 8,000 ferry passengers remained stranded in various ports in southern and southeastern Luzon.
Landslides and floods also isolated at least 12 villages in Sogod town in Southern Leyte Province, affecting about 6,000 residents.
In February, a mountainside collapsed in the province's St. Bernard town, burying the entire village of Guinsaugon and killing more than 1,000 people.
The storm ripped tarpaulin billboards off their steel frames along several roads in metropolitan Manila where winds toppled several trees but caused no major damage. Several suburbs and communities in the Philippine capital also suffered intermittent power outages.
On Friday, more than 15 scheduled flights from Manila to the airports nearest Boracay were canceled, and some flights were again canceled Saturday.
As of midday Saturday, the storm was moving at 15 kilometers per hour toward the South China Sea, packing winds of 110 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 140 kph. (AP/Sunnex)
(May 14, 2006 issue)
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