In Typhoons’ Wake, Filipinos Search for Victims - NYTimes.com

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By CARLOS H. CONDE

MANILA — Using picks, shovels and bare hands, rescuers and volunteers searched Sunday for bodies buried by dozens of landslides in the Philippines, as the country struggled to recover from successive typhoons that have killed more than 600 people.

The exact number of casualties from the landslides and the floods caused by the last typhoon, Parma, was hard to determine.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council reported a countrywide death toll of 193 from Parma. It takes time, however, for the council to confirm regional tolls.

The number of deaths was expected to rise as rescuers searched mountainous and interior areas in the northern Philippines, where Parma lingered for a week before leaving the country on Friday.

“Dozens of people are still missing,” said Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres, spokesman for the National Disaster Coordinating Council, according to Reuters. “We have heavy equipment there, but our rescuers are very cautious because they are also at risk.”

He continued: “As of now, food and relief materials can only be delivered by helicopters because it would take two to five days to clear up roads and bridges washed out by floods and landslides.”

In late September, Typhoon Ketsana battered Manila and nearby provinces, killing 337 people. Several areas affected by Ketsana remained flooded on Sunday.

Parma, which first hit the Philippines on Oct. 3 but returned on Thursday, caused more than $100 million in damage to crops and property. The northern Philippines, particularly central Luzon, supplies more than half of the country’s rice; Parma damaged vast tracts of paddies that were to be harvested this month.

Parma has been particularly disastrous because it hit remote, mountainous areas, where use of heavy equipment is limited.

“Much of the rescue work is done manually,” said Santos Nero, deputy secretary general of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, a nonprofit organization that is involved in the rescue and relief operations.

The destruction has been heavy in Benguet Province, where at least six landslides were reported and where more than 150 bodies have been recovered.

Mr. Nero said damming and erosion caused by extensive mining in Benguet, which has been going on for at least a hundred years, exposed whole communities to danger. “Our worry now is that the next storm could unleash so much rain that it might break the tailings dams of these mining companies,” Mr. Nero said by telephone from Baguio City, where his group is based. “That would be the worst disaster.”

Much of Pangasinan Province, in the plains of central Luzon, was inundated by floodwaters released from several dams that submerged more than a hundred villages downstream. Residents said it rained for three consecutive days before the release of the dam water. The government, using helicopters from both the Philippine and the United States military, has resorted to airdropping relief supplies because of the isolation of many villages.

Parma not only flooded cities and towns, it also rendered major roads and highways impassable and destroyed several bridges that connect the provinces to the capital, Manila.