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Philippines in 'state of calamity' as typhoon looms

Philippines in 'state of calamity' as typhoon looms

Slideshow: Faces of Asia PH

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.

Pinay confirmed dead in Samoan tsunami

A Filipino immigrant was among those killed by a destructive tsunami that hit the Samoa Islands in the South Pacific on Tuesday (before dawn Wednesday in Manila), the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Friday.

DFA spokesperson Ed Malaya identified the Filipino victim as 62-year-old Godofreda Reambonza-Palma of Pago Pago town in American Samoa, a US territory that is home to 65,000 people.

Malaya said Palma was a native of Dipolog, a city in the southern Philippine province of Zamboanga del Norte. She migrated as an entrepreneur to Samoa.

The DFA official said the victim had no other relative in the US territory and that the repatriation of her remains is being arranged by the Filipino community there.

Malaya said Palma's relatives in the Philippines were already informed of the incident.

News about the Filipino immigrant's death was first told to GMANews.TV on Thursday by Michelle Parungo, a resident of Samoa. According to her, the village that had the most damage were Pago Pago and Leone, which she said were "totally washed out."

"Thank God it was just 7 a.m. so most people were not at work/school yet and were able to evacuate," Parungo said in an e-mail.

An Associated Press report said enormous ocean waves caused by an earthquake swept the shores of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga, flattening villages.

Samoan officials on Friday said the death toll rose to 169 and they were planning a mass funeral and burial on Oct. 6.

Of the dead, 129 were from Samoa, 31 from American Samoa and nine from Tonga.

According to a report by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the tsunami was triggered by a magnitude-8 earthquake that occurred at 5:48 GMT Tuesday (6:48 a.m. Tuesday, Samoan time and 1:48 a.m. Wednesday, Manila time).

Convoys of military vehicles have brought food, water and medicine to the tsunami-stricken villages as victims wandered through what was left of their villages with tales of being trapped underwater, watching young children drown and hoisting elderly parents above the waves.

The quake struck at about 11 kilometers below the ocean floor. It was centered about 200 kilometers from Samoa, an island nation of 180,000 people located about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii and about about 190 kilometers from neighboring American Samoa.

The DFA said there are some 2,000 Filipinos in American Samoa and 25 in Samoa.

On Friday, a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck at local time about 242 kilometers north-northeast of Tonga, and 377 kilometers southwest of Pago Pago, said the USGS. No tsunami warning was issued. - GMANews.TV

How can we help victims of Typhoon Ondoy?

(Flickr photo by rembcc)

I’m sure this is the top question for so many of the Pinoy Answers community right now. After Typhoon Ondoy raged across Luzon dumping a reported 34 cm of rain, equivalent to a month’s worth of rainfall, in just 6 hours, more than 200 have been reported dead and nearly 300,000 displaced from their homes.

For a quick answer to this pressing question, here’s a list of some very important information for Filipinos everywhere to take part in the relief efforts for Typhoon Ondoy victims:

Philippine toll rises to 246 as new storms brew

By TERESA CEROJANO, Associated Press Writer Teresa Cerojano, Associated Press Writer – 55 mins ago

MANILA, Philippines – Rescuers pulled more bodies from swollen rivers and debris-strewn streets Tuesday, pushing the toll from flooding in the northern Philippines to more than 284 dead or missing, while two new storms brewing in the Pacific threatened to complicate relief efforts.

Authorities ordered extra police to be deployed to prevent looting in communities abandoned by fleeing residents, as frustration rose among those who have lost their homes or belongings.

Queues of bedraggled victims grew long at hundreds of aid distribution centers as floodwaters subsided further and more people went in search of food, clean water, dry clothes and shelter.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's administration — sensitive to criticism it did not give sufficient warning of the deluge or was too slow to respond — conceded it was overwhelmed but said it was doing all it could to help.

The homes of nearly 1.9 million people in the capital and surrounding areas were inundated by flooding unleashed by Tropical Storm Ketsana at the weekend, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said. Nearly 380,000 people have sought shelter in schools, churches and other evacuation centers.

AP – A medical patient trapped during the flooding is evacuated by navy personnel after the floodwater subsides …

The council said 246 were confirmed dead late Tuesday, with 38 missing.

Officials appealed for international aid, warning they may not have enough resources to withstand two new storms forecasters have spotted east of the island nation in the Pacific Ocean. One could hit the northern Philippines later this week and the other early next week, although meteorologists say that could change.

Ketsana, which scythed across the northern Philippines on Saturday, dumped more than a month's worth of rain in just 12 hours, causing the country's worst flooding in 40 years. The storm strengthened into a typhoon mid-Monday and crashed into Vietnam's central coast on Tuesday, killing at least 23 people, officials there said. Some 170,000 people were evacuated from its path.

In the Philippines, authorities rescued more than 12,000 people, but unconfirmed reports of more deaths abound, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said.

Water that reached shoulder-depth in parts of the capital's streets on Saturday had subsided in many areas by Tuesday. People trudged through ankle-deep sludge to reach shelters where volunteers handed out bottles of water and other items. Elsewhere, people used shovels and brooms to begin mopping-up.

Many people complained the aid was too coming too slowly, and was not enough.

Arroyo said those who suffered had a right to complain but appealed to them to understand that the scale of the disaster was huge.

"We're responding to the extent we can to this once-in-a-lifetime typhoon emergency," she said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Arroyo opened part of the presidential palace as a relief center, where hundreds of people queued Tuesday for packets of noodles and other food donated by companies and individuals. At another center, Arroyo's executive chef cooked gourmet food for victims.

Arroyo and her Cabinet said they would donate two months' salary to the relief effort.

But conditions in many hard-hit areas remained squalid.

In the Bagong Silangan area in the capital, about 150 people sheltered on a covered basketball court that had been turned into a makeshift evacuation center for storm victims. People lay on pieces of cardboard amid piles of garbage and swarming flies, their belongings crammed into bags nearby.

Seventeen white wooden coffins, some of them child-sized, lined one part of the court. A woman wept quietly beside one coffin.

The storm left entire communities covered in mud, cars upended on city streets and power lines cut.

The government declared a "state of calamity" in metropolitan Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces, allowing officials to use emergency funds for relief and rescue. Arroyo would issue an executive order within the week declaring a national holiday as "clean up day," the palace said.

The United States has donated $100,000 and deployed a military helicopter and five rubber boats manned by about 20 American soldiers from the country's south, where they have been providing counterterrorism training. The United Nations Children's Fund and the World Food Program have also provided food and other aid.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Gomez contributed to this report.

RP appeals for foreign aid for ‘Ondoy’ victims

The Philippine government on Monday appealed to the international community for help as it deals with the devastation caused by tropical storm “Ondoy," which battered Metro Manila and nearby provinces last Saturday and left more than a hundred people dead.

The appeal was made by Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr., also the concurrent head of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), on behalf of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

“The President authorized me as chairman of the National Disaster Coordinating Council… to request the international humanitarian community for assistance on behalf of the government of the Philippines," he said in a press briefing at the NDCC office in Camp Aguinaldo.

A total of 140 people were confirmed dead while 32 others were reported missing due to “Ondoy" as of Monday night, according to the NDCC.

Teodoro said they are requesting the office of the United Nations resident coordinator to coordinate an international appeal in behalf of the Philippine government.

“I have just authorized sending out of a flash appeal for assistance," he said.

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This early, Japan has extended Y20-million (P10.478-million) worth of relief goods for those affected by the floods caused by “Ondoy."

Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada sent a letter to Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo expressing his country’s heartfelt sympathy to the loss of many lives and serious damage to property.

"The Government of Japan, in response to the request from the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, has decided to provide emergency relief goods equivalent to approximately 20 million yen (approximately US$220,000) to the Government of the Republic of the Philippines," the Japanese Embassy said in a statement on its Web site.

Similarly, Chinese firm Hwawei would donate $30,000 to be used for the relief operations for “Ondoy" victims. This was in addition to the $10,000 earlier given by the Chinese government for disaster relief assistance to the country.

Hwawei’s cash assistance would be personally given to Vice President Noli de Castro on Monday night during the celebration of the 60th Chinese National Day.

“Some of our Filipino friends find it hard, some even impossible, to celebrate with us because of ‘Ondoy’," said Chinese Ambassador Liu Jianchiao.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Franklin Ebdalin thanked the Chinese government for its generosity. - GMANews.TV

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."