Rescuers were desperately searching for survivors on Tuesday after floods and landslides unleashed by a tropical storm in the Philippines killed more than 300 people and left at least 150 missing, many buried alive under tonnes of debris. Continued bad weather and darkness severely hampered relief efforts as rescuers tried to reach 150 people missing in Real, one of three devastated towns on the east coast of Luzon island that bore the brunt of the storm which struck on Monday, officials said.
Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman, in a television interview, said she had been told by regional offices that there were 114 people killed in Real, another 100 dead in Infanta town and 92 more fatalities in General Nakar town, all in Quezon province.
A civil defence official said a further 31 people died elsewhere in storm-related incidents.
A deadly mix of logs and earth dislodged by heavy rain buried several areas in Real, Infanta and Nakar towns shortly before midnight after Monday's storm, rescuers and survivors told AFP.
Raging floodwaters carrying heavy logs knocked down bridges connecting the three towns, isolating them from vehicular traffic.
"The area is not accessible because the bridges connecting them have collapsed," said local Air Force Commander Colonel Alfredo Cayco, who is in-charge of flying people in and out of the area.
He said four helicopters had been used to fly in supplies and rescuers and to ferry out the injured, but darkness and continuing rains and winds forced them to call off flights for the night.
"Definitely, we can't fly at night and the wind is getting rough," he said.
A private helicopter on a rescue mission was buffeted by strong winds and crashed into a river near the city of Cabanatuan. Its pilot and passengers, however, were safe.
Cayco expressed fears the death toll could rise since flood was getting higher.
"The whole place is covered with mud and the waters are still rising," he said, adding that floodwaters were even reaching some of the second-floor levels of the buildings.
Several thousand people are still stranded on their rooftops in Real, Infanta and Nakar, officials said.
Local television station ABS-CBN screened aerial footage of Real survivors pointing at 14 bodies sprawled on the ground.
An AFP photographer who over-flew the area aboard a military helicopter said only the roofs of houses and the tops of trees could be seen above the floodwaters, with logs and planks scattered everywhere.
Parts of three motor vehicles could been seen protruding above the water.
The storm caused heavy rain on the Sierra Madre mountain range north-west of Real that unleashed floods on the central Luzon plains.
On a highway near the town of San Leonardo, about 100 passengers of three buses were rescued by helicopters and rubber boats after being marooned by the overflowing waters of the River Pampanga, local television footage showed.
More than 4,000 people elsewhere fled their homes amid rising floodwaters. Officials said poor people living on riverbanks and under bridges might be forcibly evacuated due to the floods.
Infanta residents blamed the flooding on illegal loggers who they said were responsible for all the tree trunks washed down by the flood.
Armand Balilo, spokesman for the Philippine coastguard, said the town hall of Infanta, normally a centre for disaster relief, was destroyed by the storm, forcing them to use a local airport for evacuees.
Elsewhere, the civil defence office said there were 19 dead in Dingalan town near Quezon, while 11 others were killed by landslides and toppled power lines in towns north and east of Manila.
A landslide killed another person in the town of Vinzons on the Bicol peninsula, the office added.
President Gloria Arroyo, who is in Laos for a Southeast Asian summit sent her condolences to the families of those killed and displaced, her spokesman Ignacio Bunye said.
The tropical depression struck Infanta and Real on Monday before dissipating over the Sierra Madre, the weather bureau said.
Meanwhile, another tropical storm bore down on the Philippines from the Pacific Ocean with maximum sustained winds of 110km an hour.
The storm was estimated to be 1,530km east of the eastern island of Samar shortly before nightfall, moving north-west at 33km an hour, meteorologists said.
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