Devastating storm Usman leaves 68 dead in the Philippines
Source: Agence France-Presse
Devastating storm Usman leaves 68 dead in the Philippines
Agence France-Presse
Mon 31 Dec 2018 06.49 GMT
The death toll from a storm that struck the Philippines shortly after Christmas rose to 68 with the number of fatalities expected to climb even higher, civil defence officials said Monday.
Fifty-seven people died in the mountainous Bicol region, southeast of Manila, while 11 were killed in the central island of Samar, mostly due to landslides and drownings, the officials said.
“I am afraid this [death toll] will still go up because there are a lot of areas we still have to clear,” said Claudio Yucot, Bicol civil defence director.
The weather disturbance locally named Usman hit the country on Saturday. While it did not have powerful winds it brought heavy rains that caused floods and loosened the soil, triggering landslides in some areas.
Many people failed to take necessary precautions because Usman was not strong enough to be rated as a typhoon under the government’s storm alert system, Yucot said.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/31/death-toll--philippine-storm-usman-devastating
