Poor countries always seem to get hit worst, and affected most, by natural disasters. TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press
MANILA, Philippines – Stormy weather since late December has killed 56 people in the Philippines and left at least 19 missing, mostly fishermen lost in rough seas, disaster authorities said Tuesday.
Raging floodwaters and landslides from unseasonable rains that hit 25 provinces in the central and southern Philippines accounted for most of the deaths, according to the government’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
The coast guard said four fishermen were missing from a boat that capsized and broke apart Sunday in stormy waters off Palawan province southwest of Manila. Thirty-three men were rescued.
Coast guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Armand Balilo said the boat captain and his surviving crew members were able to paddle their lifeboats to an island.
An additional 13 fishermen have been missing since Sunday in the Bicol region southeast of the capital, the regional Office of Civil Defense said.
Two other men are missing in flooded villages in a southern province.
The disaster council said in a report early Tuesday that 53 people have been killed since late December.
Three others, including a 1-year-old infant girl, drowned in a flash flood that hit their village outside Santa Cruz township in southern Davao del Sur province late Monday, said Minda Quejada, a midwife who supervised relief assistance for 810 families who fled their homes. These deaths have not yet been included in the council’s casualty report.
The floodwaters in Santa Cruz were neck-deep in some areas and inundated a highway on Tuesday, stranding thousands of commuters in hundreds of vehicles that lined up on a 3-mile (5-kilometer) stretch of the road waiting for the flood to recede.
About 1.6 million people have been affected by the rains and more than half a million were provided relief assistance, the disaster council said.
The unusually heavy rains at this time of the year have been caused by a cold front that has been aggravated by the La Nina weather phenomenon,which refers to cooler-than-normal surface temperatures over parts of the Pacific Ocean, said Graciano Yumul, chief of the national weather bureau.
“2011 for the Philippines appears to be a wet year,” he said, adding that typhoons expected this year will be more intense because of La Nina.
