Philippine search and rescue operations suspended

PanARMENIAN.Net - Search and rescue operations following a typhoon that killed nearly 600 people in the southern Philippines have been hampered in part because many residents of this ravaged farming community are too stunned to assist recovery efforts, an official said Saturday, Dec 8, according to The Associated Press.

With nearly 600 other people missing after Typhoon Bopha struck on Tuesday, soldiers, police and volunteers from outside New Bataan have formed the bulk of the teams searching for bodies or signs of life under tons of fallen trees and boulders that were swept down from steep hills surrounding the town, said municipal spokesman Marlon Esperanza.

"We are having a hard time finding guides," he said. "Entire families were killed and the survivors are still in shock. They appear dazed. They can't move."

He said the rocks, mud, tree trunks and other rubble that litter the town have destroyed landmarks, making it doubly difficult to search places where houses once stood.

On Friday, bodies found jammed under fallen trees that could not be retrieved were marked with makeshift flags made of torn cloth so they can be easily spotted by properly equipped retrieval teams.

Government authorities have decided to bury unidentified bodies in a common grave after police forensic officers process them for future identification by relatives, Esperanza said.

He said heavy equipment, search dogs and chain saws had been brought in by volunteers from as far away as the capital, Manila, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) to the north.

Nearly 400,000 people, mostly from Compostela Valley and nearby Davao Oriental provinces, have lost their homes since Typhoon Bopha struck and are crowded inside evacuation centers or staying with relatives, relying on food and emergency supplies being rushed in by government agencies and aid groups.

On Saturday, the weather bureau raised storm warnings over the western part of the main northern island of Luzon after the storm veered northeast. It said weather systems to the east and west had sandwiched Bopha, slowing it down and forcing it to make a U-turn and head toward the western part of the northern Philippines. Forecasters warned that the waters off Luzon would be "rough to very rough."