Saturday, December 17, 2011

Philippine floods kill more than 400

Philippine floods kill more than 400

MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Pounding rain from a tropical storm swelled rivers and sent walls of water crushing into two southern Philippine cities in the thick of night, killing at least 436 people, many caught in their beds, officials said Saturday.

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  • Rescuers paddle their rubber boat to search for survivors Saturday after a flash flood inundated Cagayan de Oro, Philippines.
    By Froilan Gallardo, AP
    Rescuers paddle their rubber boat to search for survivors Saturday after a flash flood inundated Cagayan de Oro, Philippines.
By Froilan Gallardo, AP
Rescuers paddle their rubber boat to search for survivors Saturday after a flash flood inundated Cagayan de Oro, Philippines.
Philippine Red Cross Secretary General Gwen Pang told the Associated Press that the latest toll was based on a body count in funeral parlors. She said that 215 died in Cagayan de Oro and 144 in nearby Iligan, and the rest in several other southern and central provinces.
Most of the dead were asleep Friday night when raging floodwaters tore through their homes from swollen rivers and cascaded from mountain slopes following 12 hours of pounding rain in the southern Mindanao region. The region is unaccustomed to the typhoons that are common elsewhere in the archipelago nation.
Many of the bodies in parlors were unclaimed, indicating that entire families had perished, Pang said.
The number of missing was unclear Saturday night. Before the latest Red Cross figures, military spokesman Lt. Col. Randolph Cabangbang said about 250 people were still unaccounted for in Iligan.

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Philippine floods kill more than 400

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As we have seen in Thailand the last 138 days of flooding, we are now seeing some of the same with an even higher loss per day of human lives because the location of the flooding in the Philippines was completely unusual and completely unexpected and hit at 2 am when the majority of people there were asleep.

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