Landslide Deaths lift Philippine Storm Toll Past 450

PANGASINAN: The death toll from two weeks of unprecedented storms across the northern Philippines soared past 450 on Friday, after landslides killed dozens of people and floods inundated many towns.

As rain relentlessly pounded the main island of Luzon, mountainous regions were bracing for more landslides while communities across the central plains were enduring torrents of water up to two storeys high.

“The rains in this area are unprecedented,” the executive officer of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, Glen Rabonza.

“We are stretched, no doubt, but we are responding in the best way we can.”

The crisis showed no signs of easing as tropical storm Parma, responsible for the past week of rains, continued to hover just off Luzon.

In Benguet province, 75 people were confirmed killed after landslides struck on Thursday night and Friday morning in five towns, provincial police chief Superintendent Loreto Espinili said.

Other officials said the death toll across Benguet alone would be over 100.

“The damage in the region is massive. We have several reports of landslides across the region,” Benguet civil defence chief Olive Luces said.

In the mountain resort city of Baguio, 17 people were killed as landslides buried entire houses, city administrator and civil defence official Peter Fianza said.

A landslide also left five dead and 32 missing in Mountain Province, according to provincial governor Maximo Dalog.

Meanwhile, thousands of people were stranded on rooftops amid worsening floods in the farming region of Pangasinan province to the southwest of the provinces where the landslides occurred.

Days of rain from Parma had forced authorities to open the gates on five dams, sending water cascading through dozens of towns in the province, which has a population of 2.5 million people.