Perilous
Times
Super-typhoon leaves 13 dead in Philippines
by Staff Writers
Manila (AFP) Aug 29, 2011
Super-typhoon Nanmadol left at least 13 people dead after hitting
the Philippines, and the toll is expected to rise as hopes of
finding those missing fade, the civil defence chief said Monday.
Over 61,000 people are still evacuated from their homes after
Nanmadol, the strongest storm to hit the country this year, lashed
the northern edge of the main island of Luzon on the weekend,
causing landslides and floods.
The 13 killed were mostly buried in landslides, including two
children in northern Baguio who were killed in an avalanche of
garbage at the city dumpsite, said head of civil defence
operations Benito Ramos.
Eight other people are still missing across the country, feared
washed away at sea, in raging rivers, or buried under garbage, he
told AFP.
"The missing are most likely dead but we are still searching for
them, it is unlikely they are still alive after two or three
days," he said.
Ramos said the dead and missing in garbage dumps were scavengers
who made their living foraging for items to salvage, despite the
risk that storms could cause the mountain of trash to cascade down
upon them.
The problem is widespread in the impoverished Philippines where
people refuse to leave dangerous areas because they need to
scratch out a living, he said.
"We know which areas get flooded, which areas are landslide-prone.
Every time there is a calamity like the storm, these areas always
get flooded then we evacuate the people but afterwards, they come
back."
Large parts of northern Luzon still remain without power after
Nanmadol hit with gusts of up to 230 kilometres (145 miles) per
hour starting on Saturday, the civil defence office added.
The typhoon, named after an ancient site in Micronesia, weakened
after clipping Luzon and has moved away from the Philippines,
towards Taiwan and China.
Taiwanese authorities have evacuated about 8,000 people, closed
down schools and halted rail services as Nanmadol made landfall
Monday and swept across some of the island's most densely
populated areas.
An average of 20 storms and typhoons, many of them deadly, hit the
Philippines annually. The last storms, Nock-ten and Muifa, left at
least 70 dead when they hit in July.
Taiwan evacuates 8,000 as typhoon makes landfall
Kaohsiung, Taiwan (AFP) Aug 29, 2011 - Taiwan evacuated thousands
of people, closed down schools and halted rail services on Monday
as Typhoon Nanmadol swept across some of the island's most densely
populated areas.
The typhoon, which left at least 13 dead in the Philippines at the
weekend, made landfall near the city of Taitung on the east coast
of Taiwan in the early hours of Monday, according to the Central
Weather Bureau.
"This is the worst typhoon to hit Taiwan since Morakot," which
left more than 700 people dead or missing in 2009, a bureau
official said.
The typhoon was slowly moving northwest, packing winds of up to
137 kilometres per hour (80 miles an hour), the bureau said, and
was 30 kilometres northeast of the island's second-largest city
Kaohsiung as of 0100 GMT.
Islandwide, authorities moved more than 8,000 people to safer
places, according to the Central Emergency Operation Centre, as
the first typhoon to hit Taiwan this year bore down.
The ministry of defence deployed thousands of troops to assist in
evacuations, some navigating flooded areas in armoured personnel
carriers.
TV footage showed soldiers walking through village streets in
Pingtung county in southern Taiwan, helping people from homes
threatened by flooding and putting them on military trucks.
The defence ministry also sent two C-130 transport planes to
rescue 140 tourists marooned on the offshore island of Matsu,
according to the Taipei Times newspaper.
The Taiwan Railway Administration suspended services on two rail
lines from Taitung, the city where the typhoon had made landfall.
The typhoon brought torrential rain and some parts of Taiwan had
received more than 500 millimetres of rain since early Sunday.
The Central Weather Bureau urged the public to stay away from
mountainous and low-lying areas due to the threat of flash floods
and landslides.
As of Monday morning, the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau had
issued landslide warnings for more than 300 areas.
Businesses were closed in seven cities and counties in the south
of Taiwan, and in all but two of the island's counties, classes
were also cancelled at all schools.
Attention was also turned towards China, with the typhoon expected
to gradually grind its way towards the Taiwan Straits during the
course of Monday.
Southeast China's Fujian province called more than 25,000 fishing
boats to port Sunday, amid warnings that moderate to heavy
downpours would hit coastal areas from Monday morning, the
official Xinhua news agency reported.