Terrified Filipinos flee new typhoon
Flood death toll over 400
AFP, Real, Philippines
Terrified survivors were yesterday fleeing the northeast Philippines as a new typhoon bore down on the stricken area where flooding and landslides have left over 400 people dead and 150 missing. Typhoon Nanmadol was early Friday expected to slam into the east coast of the main island of Luzon. Entire villages were washed away by a storm earlier this week and three large towns were cut off and suffered heavy damage. The new typhoon is packing winds of 175 kilometers per hour over the Pacific Ocean and is already bringing driving rain and strong winds to the devastated region, the government weather center said. The worst-hit coastal towns of Real, Infanta and General Nakar suffered 364 dead and 139 missing, said the civil defense office in Manila. At least 39 people were killed and 17 were missing elsewhere on Luzon. In Real, the streets were strewn with logs and boulders. Some survivors queued up to board military trucks to carry them to safety while others fled on foot in small groups through the winding paths of the Sierra Madre mountains. Many men were wearing only shorts and hauling heavy rucksacks. One man had a washing machine on his back, while another man begged for a place on a truck for him and his two-year-old son. "You and I must leave now. The rains are coming again and I am afraid," said mud-caked grandmother Olympia Romantico, who had waded for 10 hours through mud to flee Real, her naked seven year-old granddaughter in tow. Freddie Lanuza, a 34-year-old resident of the nearby village of Maragondon, said he and his family had a miracle escape when a landslide struck two days ago. "There was a loud rumbling, like a clap of thunder up in the mountains. In less than seconds our house was gone. "We waited for help for two days but none came. We had to leave otherwise we would starve to death," he added. Many of the dead and missing in Real were in a three-storey building at a beach resort that was being used as a makeshift evacuation center when it collapsed at the height of the storm, civil defense officials said. "I passed by there earlier and I saw people buried. One of my friend's wife is also there," town resident Leopoldo Pusanga told AFP. President Gloria Arroyo, who just returned home from a regional summit in Laos, called off plans to fly to the storm-hit areas after warnings that it was not safe for helicopters to fly.
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