The death toll from a tropical storm in the southern Philippines rose to 182 early Sunday, with 153 people still missing, police said, after rescuers pulled dozens of bodies from a swollen river. Tropical Storm Tembin has lashed the nation's second-largest island of Mindanao since Friday, triggering flash floods and mudslides. The Philippines is pummelled by 20 major storms each year on average, many of them deadly. But Mindanao, home to 20 million people, is rarely hit.
Police, soldiers and volunteers used shovels to dig through mud and debris as they searched for bodies in the village of Dalama on Saturday. "The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no longer there," police officer Gerry Parami told AFP by telephone from nearby Tubod town. Also on Saturday, rescuers retrieved bodies from the Salog River near the town of Sapad.
The bodies in Sapad had been swept downriver from a flooded town upstream called Salvador, Rando Salvacion, the Sapad town police chief, told AFP, while authorities in Salvador said other bodies were retrieved upstream.