'Reming' leaves trail of broken bodies; rescue operations slow

(Updated 7:32 a.m.) The monstrous ruin that typhoon 'Reming' had exacted reared its ugly head on Saturday as rescuers found broken and mangled body parts in the rubble, in villages buried by mudslides from Mayon Volcano in the Bicol region. Retrieval operations have yet to pick up speed in part because soldiers said "broken up body parts" were all that remained of some of the estimated 200 to 400 people who died in the mudslides and flashfloods that 'Reming' unleashed. "Ang iba naputol. Ang iba, paa na lang at tiyan na kalahati (Some of the remains have been mangled. In some cases we found only feet, or torsos that had been halved)," the radio dzXL quoted the soldiers as saying. This developed as health and social welfare authorities, fearing the outbreak of disease in the area, disppatched medicine and water purifiers in the affected villages Saturday morning. Dead piling up "Almost 1,000 families in the area were affected. Aabot ng mga 10,000 persons ito. 'Pag pumasok ang data tataas pa yan (Almost 1,000 families or about 10,000 persons were affected. But we expect this figure to go up once additional reports come in)," Social Welfare secretary Esperanza Cabral said in an interview on dzRH radio. Rescue workers said that as of 6 a.m. Saturday, the body count had reached 173. Many of the dead remained exposed to the elements and had not been brought to facilities for identification, however. At least 58 victims, mostly children, had been properly retrieved. Several residents remained missing, including at least four students last seen at a boardinghouse in Rawis village in Legazpi City. The house was swept away at the height of typhoon Reming’s fury. The Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) estimated Friday that some 400 victims may have been killed in the mudslide, which hit several areas in Legazpi City and Daraga town in Albay. In Manila, health authorities sent medical teams to the site, even as Health Secretary Francisco Duque III ordered doctors in government hospitals to be on white and blue alert. Duque also ordered the sending of anti-tetanus serum to the site to prevent infections and complications there. Docs on 24-hour duty "All doctors will be on duty 24 hours. I have ordered medicines pre-positioned there," Duque said in an interview on dzRH radio. Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Coyme said commandant Rear Admiral Damian Carlos has ordered at least one search-and-rescue vessel sent to Bicol to serve as a floating hospital. For her part, Cabral said relief goods and water purifiers from Manila have been sent to Bicol, because the rice supply stockpiled in Legazpi City had been drenched. "The water purifiers are the same ones we used in (rescue operations for) the mudslide in Southern Leyte," she said, referring to a landslide in Southern Leyte last February. Casualty toll: 200 to 400 Nearly 400 people have died Friday in Albay and Mindoro Oriental provinces in the aftermath of typhoon Reming, according to the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC). The government's National Disaster Coordinating Council, however, reported only 198 dead, 260 missing, and 64 injured as of 6 p.m. Friday. Albay's local government also gave a different fatality count. The mayor of the typhoon-battered province, Gov. Fernando Gonzales, said in a television interview that local authorities have only accounted 112 deaths. He said the figures included 109 people who died in mudslides on the slopes of the Mayon volcano that also injured 130. "We are not very optimistic about this. As of now, it's not very hopeful. It does not look [like there will be more] survivors… There is no possibility," Gonzales said. On the extent of damage in Albay, the mayor said: "The disaster covered almost every corner of this province — rampaging floods, falling trees, damaged houses." The public works department estimated damage to infrastructure in the Bicol region alone at a billion pesos. In its report, the Red Cross said at least 388 persons were killed in Albay when mud flows triggered by the typhoon swamped their villages, while two others died in Mindoro Oriental, for a total of 390 as of late Friday afternoon. The Red Cross said 100 people had been reported missing in the towns of Daraga, Sto. Domingo and Legazpi City. Nine people were reported injured, five in Mindoro Oriental and four in Batangas. Displaced residents Floods also displaced at least 25,020 people, 22,342 of which in the Southern Tagalog. Quezon province topped the list after it reported that 11,818 people have fled to higher ground. In Marinduque, as many as 5,225 people left their homes after floods hit their village while 3,348 others in Laguna sought shelter at evacuation centers. Authorities said 1,472 people in Laguna were displaced, 314 in Cavite and 165 in Rizal. In the Bicol region, a total of 2,678 people were displaced, 1,140 of which were in Albay. Authorities listed 1,289 people have left their homes in Camarines Norte, 129 in Camarines Sur and 120 in Catanduanes. Authorities said they expect the number of fatalities to go up as soon as rescuers reach other villages in Albay that were isolated by floods and mudslides caused by Reming. A state of calamity has been declared in Camarines Norte and Sur and Naga City in Bicol; and Naujan town and Calapan City in Mindoro Oriental. Reming (international codename: Durian) was spotted over Calapan City in Oriental Mindoro as of 4 p.m. Friday, packing maximum winds of 130 kilometers (93 miles) per hour near the center. It hit the Bicol region Thursday night, flooding villages and stranding dozens of passengers. Bigger calamity Earlier in a GMANews.TV interview, PNRC chair Sen. Richard Gordon sounded the alarm on the disaster, describing it as a calamity "bigger than [super typhoon] Milenyo." According to reports gathered by PNRC, worst hit was Padang village in Legazpi City with 50 deaths and an undetermined number of residents covered by heaps of soil and boulders. The fatality count in Binitayan village in Daraga town was pegged at 50. Meanwhile, in Sto Domingo town, at least 26 people were killed in the mud flow that hit Basud village. Gordon added that at least 82 people in these areas were trapped on top of the roofs in the wake of the devastation brought about by Reming. Massive relief operations With power and phone lines downed by powerful winds, helicopters were carrying out aerial surveillance of cutoff areas. Officials estimated that the storm affected some 22,000 people. The magnitude of the destruction hampered relief operations. "Our rescue teams are overstretched rescuing people on rooftops," said Glen Rabonza, head of the national Office of Civil Defense. Gonzalez said seven or eight villages had been hit by the wet lava flows that rumbled down Mayon's slopes for three hours Thursday. "It happened very rapidly and many people did not expect this because they haven't experienced mud flows in those areas before," Gonzalez said. "By the time they wanted to move, the rampaging mud flows were upon them." On Friday, people were digging foundations for new homes, hammering tin sheets onto leaking roofs and drying pillows, mattresses and clothes in the sun. "The wind was extremely strong," said Domingo Billares, sitting beside his wife in the town of Ragay, in Camarines Sur province, where the wooden frame was the only thing left of their home. "We thought we would not survive through the day." Communities wiped out Undersecretary Dr. Graciano Yumul of the Department of Science and Technology said the storm was particularly damaging because it came ashore Thursday in Catanduanes, an island province with no mountains to break the storm's momentum. "So it really destroyed the island that it hit," Yumul said. "That is the reason you are seeing the kind of destruction you are seeing right now. Noel Rosal, mayor of Legazpi city, the capital of Albay province, visited Padang and said three of the five communities comprising the village of 1,400 people had been "wiped out" with only the roofs of several houses jutting out of the debris. Rosal said Padang can only be reached by foot or motorcycle because a bridge linking it to Legazpi, about six miles away, was damaged. He said the mudslide occurred Thursday afternoon as the city was lashed by Durian. His own residence was under water that was "higher than a person" from a flash flood. "I was almost a goner. I had to swim," Rosal said. Jukes Nunez of the Albay Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council said many communities were still flooded Friday morning. "The request for rescue is overwhelming. The disaster managers are victims themselves," he said. - Amita Legaspi, GMANews.TV with a report from AP