MANILA — Emergency workers scrambled to
rescue residents trapped by floods in and around the
Philippine capital on
Sunday as Tropical Storm Nalgae swept out of the country after killing at least
48 people.
اضافة اعلان
Several neighborhoods in towns and cities just
outside Manila remained under water after the storm raked across the main
island of Luzon overnight, cutting power supplies and inflicting damage.
The death toll from the storm rose to 48, the
national disaster agency said on Sunday, most of them from a series of flash
floods and landslides that destroyed villages on the southern island of
Mindanao on Friday.
In the Manila suburb of Paranaque, rescuers swam
through 3m floodwaters overnight to reach 60 people including children marooned
on an upper floor of a building, a local official said.
“They were shouting and crying in panic because they
really have no way out” after floodwaters rose as they attended a party, village
chief Noel Japlos told AFP.
“We did not expect the water to go this high. If we
weren’t able to rescue them all, some of them could have died,” he added.
Video footage
taken by the rescue team showed emergency workers in life vests using a rope to
lead them out of the building while children were put on improvised floats.
In nearby Kawit town, a corpse in a white coffin
floated on a flooded street, an AFP photographer saw.
Residents said a flash flood overnight likely
carried it off from a nearby cemetery.
Kawit residents emerging from receding floods were
cleaning up and trying to dry their wet belongings.
“It’s so difficult because we can’t move around due
to the flood and we have a two-month-old baby who can’t sleep because there’s
no electricity,” Andinor Cairme, a street sweeper, told AFP.
The storm slightly weakened as it roared out into
the
South China Sea, the state forecaster said.
Port operations have also slowly resumed as
thousands of stranded passengers travel in time for the All Saints’ Day holiday
on Tuesday, when millions of Filipinos visit the graves of relatives.
The civil defense office said 22 people were missing
and 40 were injured with bridges, roads and crops also destroyed.
An average of 20 typhoons and storms hit the
Philippines annually, killing hundreds each year and leaving vast areas of the
country in perpetual poverty.
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