At least 28 people were killed today in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Maggie in central and southern Philippineswhile the search for the missing continues.
More than 17,000 people have fled their homes which have flooded and have no electricity. In Leite County, the worst-hit area, at least 22 people were killed Monday in a landslide in several villages and 27 are missing, according to local authorities.
Three people were also killed in the Negros Oriental province and three others on the southern island of Mindanao, according to the National Disaster Management Agency.
Drone footage, authenticated by AFP, shows a huge stream of red mud along a coconut hill and mud-covered houses in the village of Bunga, near Beybei in Leyte County.
“We are supposed to be in the middle of a drought, but climate change seems to have upset all of that,” said Marisa Miguel Cano, a Baybey municipal official.
According to her, landslides sometimes occur in this rural area, but the extent of them on Monday was amazing.
As the planet is affected by climate change, hurricanes of this kind are becoming increasingly powerful, scientists warn.
The search for missing persons is focused on the neighboring village of Kantagnos, which was hit by two landslides from which at least 5 people lost their lives, while there is an unknown number of missing persons.
According to a local official, several people were pulled alive from the mud, but rescue crews fear that several others are still trapped in the mud.
“There was a small landslide and some people managed to run and escape and a bigger one followed which sank the whole village,” Jose Carlos Curry, the mayor of Baybay, told a local radio station.
“We are looking for a lot of people, there are 210 houses here,” he continued, adding that rescue efforts were being hampered by bad weather.
“We are doing our best, but this is difficult because of the risk,” he continued. “The crews have mobilized, everything is ready, but we can not move forward because it is still raining heavily and the rivers are still flooded,” he added.
The landslides near Baybay were caused by what was considered “danger zones” and many residents were taken aback while they were at home, Mark Timbal, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency, told AFP.
Maggie, known locally in the Philippines as Agaton, is the first major tropical storm to hit the country this year, often with natural disasters.
The storm caused dozens of ports to suspend operations and nearly 8,000 people were stranded before the Easter holidays, one of the most important travel times of the year.
The country reopened its borders only in February to vaccinated tourists from most foreign countries, after the lifting of most of the restrictive measures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Philippines, which ranks among the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming, is hit by an average of 20 tropical storms a year.
The death toll or missing in 2013 from Hurricane Haiyan, one of the strongest to ever hit Earth, is estimated at more than 7,300.
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