477 dead, homeless swell after Philippines typhoon

* Government appeals for international help

* Rescuers looking for 380 missing people

* President sends food and other supplies to 150,000 people

NEW BATAAN: A quarter million people were homeless and 477 confirmed dead after the Philippines’ worst typhoon this year, officials said on Thursday, as the government appealed for international help.

Typhoon Bopha ploughed across Mindanao island on Tuesday, flattening whole towns in its path as hurricane-force winds brought torrential rain that triggered floods and landslides.

Erinea Cantilla and her family walked barefoot for two days in a vain search for food and shelter through a muddy wasteland near the mountainous town of New Bataan after the deluge destroyed their house and banana and cocoa farm. Rescuers said they were looking for 380 missing while seeking help for more than 250,000 others who were sheltered in schools, gyms and other buildings after losing everything.

Shell-shocked survivors scrabbled through the rubble of their homes to find anything that could be recovered, as relatives searched for missing family members among mud-caked bodies laid out in rows on tarpaulins. President Benigno Aquino has sent food and other supplies by ship to 150,000 people on Mindanao’s east coast where three towns remain cut off by landslides and wrecked bridges, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said.

Officials said many of the 477 dead victims were poor migrants who found work at landslide-prone sites such as New Bataan and nearby Monkayo towns, either at unregulated gold mines or at banana plantations. Bopha, flower in Cambodian, wiped out a fourth of the country’s banana crop, according to the local industry association.

via Daily Times – Leading News Resource of Pakistan – 477 dead, homeless swell after Philippines typhoon.

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