MANILA, Philippines?? More than 250 people were killed and almost twice that number were missing after a typhoon hit the southern Philippines, officials said on Saturday, triggering flash floods and landslides and forcing tens of thousands from their homes.
Typhoon Washi, with winds gusting up to 56 mph, hit the resource-rich island of Mindanao late on Friday, bringing heavy rain that also grounded some domestic flights and left wide areas without power.
The Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) said 256 people were killed in flash floods in Mindanao and another island. Soldiers and police were recovering more bodies washed ashore in nearby towns.
"The death toll might still rise because there are still a lot of missing people," said Gwendolyn Pang, secretary-general of the PNRC.
Photoblog: Storm, floods hits south Philippines
She said the hardest-hit areas were in the cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro.
Almost 400 people were unaccounted for, most of them from a coastal village in Iligan. Houses were swept into the sea by floodwaters while people were sleeping inside late on Friday.
The latest Red Cross figures put the death toll in Iligan at 144. Another 86 were killed in Cagayan de Oro, many of them children.
Five miners were killed in a landslide in Monkayo on Mindanao and another 21 people drowned on the central island of Negros, the PNRC said.
The national disaster agency put the death toll at 131, but other government officials also said at least 256 people had been killed.
The Philippines social welfare department said about 100,000 people were displaced and brought to more than a dozen shelters in Iligan and Cagayan de Oro.??
Villages 'swept to the sea'
Teddy Sabuga-a, a disaster officer in Misamis Oriental province, said 60 people were rescued in waters off El Salvador city, about 6 miles northwest of Cagayan de Oro, after they were swept to the sea by a raging river, and about 120 more were rescued off Opol township, closer to the city.
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He said an island in the middle of the Cagayan de Oro river was inundated, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or people missing.
Cruz said the coast guard and other rescuers were scouring the waters off his coastal city for survivors or bodies that may have been swept to the sea by a swollen river.
The floodwaters were waist-high in some neighborhoods that do not usually experience flooding. Scores of residents escaped the floods by climbing onto the roofs of their homes, Cruz said.
Army spokesman Colonel Leopoldo Galon said search and rescue operations would continue along the shorelines in Misamis Oriental and Lanao del Norte provinces.
"I can't explain how these things happened, entire villages were swept to the sea by flash floods," Galon told Reuters, saying the death toll could rise as hundreds of people were unaccounted for.
"I have not seen anything like this before. This could be worse than Ondoy," he said, referring to a 2009 storm that inundated the capital, Manila, killing hundreds of people.
Prominent radio broadcaster missing
Television images showed bodies covered in mud, cars piled on top of each other and wrecked homes. Helicopters and boats searched the sea for survivors and victims.
Those missing included prominent radio broadcaster Enie Alsonado, who was swept away while trying to save his neighbors, Cruz said.
Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro said that about 20,000 residents of the city had been affected and that evacuees were packed in temporary shelters.
Television footage showed muddy water rushing in the streets, sweeping away all sorts of debris. Thick layers of mud coated streets where the waters had subsided. One car was shown to have been carried over a concrete fence.
The chief of the national disaster agency, Benito Ramos, said that officials were still getting reports from the field and that the number of casualties would likely rise.
"Massive flooding had been reported over the region, especially in Iligan city and Cagayan de Oro city," Ramos said, adding that tens of thousands of people sought shelter on high ground.
Strong winds toppled trees onto the rain-saturated ground in Polanco township in Zamboanga del Norte province. An 80-year-old woman drowned after being trapped in the first floor of her flooded home. A 30-year-old man and a 10-year-old boy also drowned, said provincial disaster officer Dennis Tenorio.
Washi, the 19th storm to hit the Philippines this year, came ashore in eastern Mindanao and blanketed the region with thick rain clouds 250 miles in diameter.
It quickly cut across the region overnight and was over the Sulu Sea by midmorning Saturday, packing maximum winds of 47 miles per hour and gusts of up to 56 mph. It is expected to blow out of the country late Sunday, forecaster Raymond Ordinario said.
Back-to-back typhoons in September left more than 100 people dead in the northern Philippines.
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The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45705894/ns/weather/
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