Philippines in 'state of calamity' as typhoon looms

Philippines in 'state of calamity' as typhoon looms

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MANILA (AFP) - – President Gloria Arroyo placed the Philippines under a "state of calamity" on Friday and terrified people fled their homes as a powerful typhoon threatened to unleash more carnage following deadly floods.

After being accused of not preparing her country adequately for last Saturday's storm that killed 293 people in and around Manila, Arroyo also ordered forced evacuations of towns in the direct path of Typhoon Parma.

"Our prayers are that no lives will be lost," said Bella Angara, the governor of the northern Philippine province of Aurora, which is one of the areas predicted to feel Parma's full force on Saturday afternoon.

The government warned Parma would tear down houses in and around Aurora, while likely bringing more heavy rain to the nation's capital, Manila, and nearby areas that were still recovering from Saturday's record floods.

"We're praying very hard that the super typhoon will spare us," said housewife Nita Solita, 42, who was living in a makeshift evacuation centre in Manila after losing her home in the floods.

"I don't know what's happening to our country."

Nearly 400,000 people remained in under-prepared schools, gymnasiums and other makeshift government shelters after tropical storm Ketsana unleashed the heaviest rains in more than four decades on Manila.

The rains from Parma threatened to worsen already squalid conditions and further hamper relief supplies for the survivors in those shelters.

Many parts of Manila and neighbouring regions also remain under water -- with mud, debris and trash still blocking drains -- so any more rain could lead to another surge in flood waters.

In one town that remained in chest-deep water on the outskirts of Manila, people were fleeing their homes in preparation for another surge in the floods.

"I ordered this morning the evacuation of people in flood-stricken areas... thousands have already transferred to public schools and my own rice milling compound," said San Pedro mayor Calixto Cataquiz. Related article: Prison under water

Arroyo also ordered the evacuation of those living in coastal and low-lying regions further north on the Philippines' main island of Luzon, such as Aurora province.

"We need that preventative evacuation," Arroyo said in a nationally televised conference with government officials that was held to discuss preparations for Parma.

Her spokesman, Cerge Remonde, told reporters later that Arroyo had declared a state of calamity for the whole country, which allows local authorities to tap emergency funds and the national government to impose price controls.

Large areas of the Philippines, including Manila, are already under a state of calamity because of tropical storm Ketsana.

"(But) it is much better if the whole country (is under a state of calamity) so that local governments are prepared," Remonde said.

About 1.8 million people could be exposed to Parma's worst winds, according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"We are extremely concerned," said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The government weather station said that Parma, which was originally forecast to hit Aurora on Saturday morning, was now predicted to make landfall on Saturday afternoon after its pace slowed.

But it was still packing wind gusts of 230 kilometres per hour and could even strengthen with the more time it spends over the sea, it said.

"These gusts are strong enough to destroy houses, to rip the roofs off houses," said Nathaniel Cruz, head of the weather forecasting unit.

The Philippines is normally battered by about 20 typhoons annually, but the pattern has changed in recent years and the ferocity of some has increased.

Some weather experts have blamed the changing nature and pattern of the typhoons on climate change.

Classes to resume Monday unless...

ABS-CBN

MANILA - Classes in pre-school, elementary and high school will likely resume on Monday except in schools that are being used as evacuation centers and in areas still flooded, according to Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Jesli Lapus.

Based on the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) meeting on Friday, Lapus said classes should resume on Monday except:

1) where schools are being used as evacuation centers; 2) where local government authorities declare suspension of classes in their respective areas; 3) where schools are still inaccessible due to various reasons such as floods.

However, Lapus said this policy may still change depending on the impact of supertyphoon Pepeng, which was expected to hit Bicol and northern Luzon starting Saturday afternoon.

"We have to wait for what Pepeng is going to develop into as far as Metro Manila is concerned," he said in an interview with ANC on Friday. "Assuming Pepeng does not disturb the situation right now, we are inclined to localize the suspension of classes."

This means local government authorities will decide whether to resume classes on Monday.

Lapus said many believe classes, especially in private schools, should already resume on Monday in Metro Manila and other areas affected by Ondoy.

He expressed concern over the many class suspensions saying this has affected the minimum number of school days of 204.

"So marami na tayong mga araw na nawalan ng pasok. We cannot indefinitely be on regional suspension, dahil magme-make na tayo ng klase nito," Lapus said.

He suggested that schools may hold make-up classes on Saturdays or shorten the semestral break. Another option is home study.

"We have modules for home study. This is one way--to learn in the houses," Lapus said.

Teenager rescued 40 hours after Indonesia quake

PADANG, Indonesia – Rescuers pulled a teenager alive from her collapsed college 40 hours after a powerful earthquake devastated western Indonesia, while cries for help Friday from beneath a flattened hotel spurred the frantic search for more survivors.

Two days after Wednesday's 7.6-magnitude quake toppled thousands of buildings on Sumatra island, the government said nearly 3,000 may still be trapped under the rubble. At least 715 people are already confirmed dead. Paramedics laid out dozens of corpses and the stench of decomposing bodies filled the air.

Some victims have yet to receive help. In a district north of the hard-hit city of Padang, stricken residents said they'd seen no rescue workers. Most structures there had been leveled, and people were using shovels and their bare hands to clear landslides and dig out bodies.

Against a grim backdrop of grief and destruction, rescuers found a reason to cheer: Ratna Kurniasari Virgo, 19, an English major sophomore, was found alive under the rubble of her college in Padang, the Foreign Language School of Prayoga. She was pulled out Friday morning, conscious, 40 hours after the quake hit at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday.

With excited shouts and giving words of encouragement to each other, rescuers pulled Virgo hands-first from a hole drilled in the debris. Her olive-colored T-shirt almost spotless, Virgo was laid on a stretcher before being taken to hospital to be treated for a broken leg.

"She is fine, conscious and does not have any life-threatening injuries," said Nining Rosanti, a nurse, at the hospital.

Elsewhere in the city, at the site of the former Ambacang Hotel where as many as 100 were feared trapped, rescue workers detected signs of life under a hill of tangled steel, concrete slabs and broken bricks of the three-story structure, said Gagah Prakosa, a spokesman of the rescue team.

"We heard some voices of people under the rubble, but as you can see the damage is making it very difficult to extricate them," Prakosa said, as a backhoe cleared the debris noisily.

The voices were heard 44 hours after the disaster, giving hope that many lives could still be saved.

But as the first foreign relief teams made their way to the scene, Indonesian officials said a lack of heavy digging equipment was hampering the search.

"Heavy equipment and rescuers are our priority," said spokesman Priyadi Kardono of the Health Ministry's national disaster management agency.

Kardono said Friday that 715 people have been confirmed dead and 2,400 hospitalized. U.N. spokeswoman Laksmita Noviera in Jakarta said the United Nations fears the toll could rise to 1,100.

That appeared a conservative estimate. Kardono said nearly 3,000 people may still be trapped under rubble. It is the first confirmed government figure for the missing, suggesting that the final death toll could be in the thousands.

The damage from the undersea quake was believed most extensive around Padang, a coastal town of 900,000 people and the capital of heavily populated West Sumatra province.

But about 50 miles (80 kilometers) to the north, in the rural, hilly district of Pariaman, which is home to about 370,000 people, an Associated Press reporter saw virtually no buildings still standing. The region was largely cut off and had received no outside help, leaving many to clear roads of landslides and dig out bodies using shovels and bare hands.

Officials said more than 10,000 homes and buildings had been destroyed there. It was unclear how many had died.

At a makeshift center for the homeless, dozens sheltered from the burning sun under a 15-by-30 foot (5-by-10 meter) canopy donated by a local business.

"It's too crowded here at night. We need more space and we need more shelter," said resident Ahmad Razali. "I'm worried about looters. They are out there and the police are too busy to do anything. We haven't gotten any help from the government yet."

Medical teams, search dogs, backhoes and emergency supplies, some of it given by other countries, were flown into Sumatra on Friday after Indonesia issued an appeal for international help.

"Please be patient," Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told the crowd of people whose relatives are missing, assuring them that the government was doing everything in its power to save lives.

But death was pervasive as bodies began decomposing in the tropical heat.

Paramedics laid out dozens of corpses at the Dr. M. Djamil General Hospital, Padang's biggest, which also was partly damaged in the quake. The air was filled with the wail of ambulance sirens.

Anwari, who uses only one name, burst into tears when asked who he was waiting for outside the hospital.

"Don't ask me about my daughter ... She is still missing," Anwari said, between sobs. "Please don't ask me ... it reminds me of her." He was too distraught to say anything more.

With communications and power supplies still down in many areas, fuel was being rationed to focus on locating the missing.

Twenty-eight tons of supplies, including water, medicine and basic food provisions, were flown into regional airports to be distributed to the needy. Aid workers handed tents to some of the tens of thousands of people made homeless, disaster management spokesman Kardono said.

Russia sent two planeloads of supplies, along with doctors and nurses to treat the seriously injured.

Also donating millions of dollars in aid and financial assistance were governments and charities of Australia, Britain, China, Germany, Japan, the European Union, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Denmark and the United States, Indonesian officials said.

President Barack Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, pledged to support earthquake recovery efforts there, as well as provide assistance to the South Pacific countries of Samoa and American Samoa, which were hit by a deadly tsunami Tuesday. The United States pledged $3.3 million in immediate assistance to Indonesia.

Indonesia sits on a major geological fault zone and experiences dozens of quakes every year. Wednesday's quake originated on the same fault line that spawned the 2004 Asian tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.

It was the deadliest since May 2006, when more than 3,000 people died in the city of Yogyakarta.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani said the government has allocated $25 million for a two-month emergency response. She said the earthquake will seriously affect Indonesia's economic growth, because West Sumatra is a main producer of crude palm oil.

Dust storm shrouds Sydney, nearly closing airport

SYDNEY – Australia's worst dust storm in 70 years blanketed the heavily populated east coast Wednesday in a cloud of red Outback grit, nearly closed the country's largest airport and left millions of people coughing and sputtering in the streets.

No one was hurt as a result of the pall that swept in overnight, bringing an eerie orange dawn to Sydney, but ambulance services reported a spike in emergency calls from people with breathing difficulties, and police warned drivers to take it easy on the roads.

Dust clouds blowing east from Australia's dry interior — parched even further by the worst drought on record — covered dozens of towns and cities in two states as strong winds snatched up tons of topsoil, threw it high into the sky and carried it hundreds of miles (kilometers).

International flights were diverted from Sydney to other cities — three from New Zealand were turned around altogether — and domestic schedules were thrown into chaos as operations at Sydney Airport were curtailed by unsafe visibility levels. Passenger ferries on the city's famous harbor were also stopped for several hours for safety reasons.

The dust over Sydney had largely cleared by midafternoon, though national carrier Qantas said severe delays would last all day because of diverted and late-running flights.

The dust was still flying further north, however, and the sky over the Queensland state capital of Brisbane was clogged with dust into the early evening.

Such thick dust is rare over Sydney, and came along with other uncommon weather conditions across the country in recent days. Hailstorms have pummeled parts of the country this week, while other parts have been hit with an early spring mini-heatwave, and wildfires.

"It did feel like Armageddon because when I was in the kitchen looking out the skylight, there was this red glow coming through," Sydney resident Karen told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

The storms — visible as a huge brown smudge in satellite photographs of Australia on Wednesday — are the most severe since the 1940s, experts said. One was recorded traveling from southern Australia all the way to New Zealand some 1,400 miles (2,220 kilometers) away.

Officials said particle pollution in Sydney's air rose to the worst on record Wednesday, and the New South Wales state ambulance service said it had received more than 250 calls before midday from people suffering breathing problems.

People with asthma or heart or lung diseases were urged not to go outside and to keep their medicine inhalers handy.

"Keeping yourself indoors today is the main thing to do if you have any of those conditions and particularly if you're a known sensitive sufferer such as children, older adults or pregnant women," said Wayne Smith, a senior state health official.

Sydney residents coughed and hacked their way through their morning commute, rubbing grit from their eyes. Some wore masks, wrapped their faces in scarves or pressed cloths over their noses and mouths.

"These dust storms are some of the largest in the last 70 years," said Nigel Tapper, an environmental scientist at Monash University. "Ten very dry years over inland southern Australia and very strong westerlies have conspired to produce these storms."