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PHILIPPINES-TYPHOON-MANGKHUT-TOLL
Philippines typhoon toll hits 81, expected to rise
MANILA, Sept 19, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The death toll in the Philippines from
Typhoon Mangkhut has climbed to 81 and could hit triple digits as searchers
dig through a landslide where dozens are presumed dead, authorities said
Wednesday.
Mangkhut swamped farm fields in the nation’s agricultural north and
smashed houses when it tore through at the weekend with violent winds and
heavy rains.
Since then the toll has climbed mostly due to the corpses recovered from
the massive landslide in the mining town of Itogon where dozens are still
believed buried under the mud.
“From the list I saw 59 people are still missing (at Itogon),” Ricardo
Jalad, civil defence chief, told AFP. “If you add that to those already
recovered it’s possible the toll could top 100.”
The typhoon, the most powerful to strike this year, also battered Hong
Kong and killed four in China’s southern province of Guangdong.
Searchers at Itogon continued their grim work on Wednesday, digging with
shovels and their bare hands in the vast expanse of mud that crushed
dwellings used by small-scale miners.
The area was primed for disaster before Mangkhut hit, as it came on the
heels of nearly a month of continuous monsoon rains that saturated the soil
of the already hazardous area.
Of the hundreds digging through the debris, many were miners themselves
who were looking for friends and relatives, determined to make sure they
received a proper burial.
The Philippines’s deadliest storm on record is Super Typhoon Haiyan, which
left more than 7,350 people dead or missing across the central Philippines in
November 2013.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1030 hrs