MANILA (AFP) – Rescuers in the Philippines searched a lake and scoured isolated villages yesterday to locate dozens of missing people as the death toll from Tropical Storm Trami hit 110.
Trami, which rammed into the Philippines on October 24, was among the deadliest storms to hit the Southeast Asian country this year.
According to the national disaster agency, it forced more than half a million people to flee their homes and at least 36 people remain missing.
Police in the hardest-hit Bicol region have recorded 38 deaths, most due to drowning.
“We are still receiving many calls and we are trying to save as many people as we can,” Bicol regional police director Andre Dizon told AFP.
“Hopefully, there will be no more deaths.”
Dizon added that “many residents” in the region’s Camarines Sur province are still trapped on roofs and the upper floors of their homes.
The death toll in Batangas, south of Manila, has risen to 55, provincial police chief Jacinto Malinao told AFP. Two were reported dead in separate incidents of electrocution and drowning in Cavite province, police said.
Eight deaths were recorded in other provinces, bringing an AFP tally to 109, calculated from official police and disaster agency sources.
“A higher death toll is possible in the coming days since rescuers can now reach previously isolated places,” Edgar Posadas of the Civil Defence Office told AFP.
