Hopes of pulling more survivors from a building that collapsed 12 days ago in a fierce storm in the northern Philippines dwindled on Saturday as private rescuers ended work, saying they had explored all possible areas. Rain fell as miners from private firms prepared to leave the site, but soldiers said they would continue excavating bodies from the rubble as long as it was still safe to do so.
"In our assessment, the basement where we expected there may still be survivors, we think there's no more hope. They're all dead," said Joel Son, an engineer who headed the miners' group.
Son said the miners had dug holes in the basement area but had failed to detect any sign of life. About 120 people were believed to have been using the structure as a storm shelter.
Nearly 1,800 people are dead or missing in eastern and northern provinces on Luzon island after a typhoon and three tropical storms in two weeks set off torrents of water, mud, boulders and logs that swept away villages and bridges.
At least three million Filipinos have been affected. With disease a major worry, relief efforts are focused on getting food, clean water, medicine and shelter to 650,000 of the most desperate by helicopter, boat and on foot.
On Thursday soldiers and miners searching the collapsed building in Real found a child, her grandmother and two teenaged boys alive 10 days after they were buried in the rubble.
The four survivors had no serious injuries but were very weak after living on nothing but dripping water for 10 days.
"I heard the digging and then I saw the light," said Ian Carl Bungat, 14. "God heard our prayers."
Their discovery had given hope to waiting relatives and rescuers, but later excavation turned up only corpses.
MAJOR WATER ARTERY DAMAGED: Colonel Jaime Buenaflor said rescuers had extracted about 80 bodies from the ruins.
Ariel Montes, a local village chief, said he hoped rescuers would continue their work.
"It is saddening. I have not yet retrieved my parents from the ruins. But at least other residents of my village have seen their dead," Montes said.
Debris from the typhoon and storms also clogged a major water tunnel connecting the Umiray River in General Nakar, Quezon to Angat Dam in Bulacan province, which supplies water to 97 percent of Manila's estimated 12 million residents.
"The damage to the Umiray tunnel is unprecedented," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo told a news conference after meeting with disaster officials. "The government is working round the clock to repair the damage but this incident should galvanise Metro Manilans to carry on a strong environmental cause, " she said. "This is a grim warning as well as a wake-up call for collective action."
Water utility officials said it would take four months to clear the tunnel of boulders and logs, adding that water supplies in the capital might run low if bad weather delayed repairs.
Comments
Comments are closed.