The
death toll from a tropical storm in the southern Philippines climbed
swiftly to 133 on Saturday, as rescuers pulled dozens of bodies from a
swollen river, police said.
Tropical Storm Tembin has
lashed the nation's second largest island of Mindanao since Friday,
triggering flash floods and mudslides.
Rescuers
retrieved 36 bodies from the Salog river in Mindanao on Saturday, as
officials reported more fatalities in the impoverished Zamboanga
peninsula.
It was forecast to smash into the tip of the western island of Palawan late Saturday, the state weather service said.
“The river rose and most of the homes were swept away. The village is no longer there,” Tubod police officer Gerry Parami told AFP by telephone.
Police,
soldiers and volunteers used shovels to dig through mud and debris in a
bid to recover bodies in Dalama, a farming village of about 2,000
people near Tubod, Parami added.
Boulders brought down
by flash floods also buried around 40 houses in the town of Piagapo,
killing at least 10 people, civil defence officer Saripada Pacasum told AFP.
“We've sent rescuers but they're making little progress due to the rocks,” he said.
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
by these cyclones.
Eight other people were killed by floods elsewhere on Lanao del Sur province, Pacasum said.
Police
said three people each died from landslides in the provinces of
Bukidnon and Zamboanga Sibugay, while one fatality was also reported in
Iligan city.
Four people were listed as missing after
being buried in landslides or being swept away by floodwaters, while
more than 12,000 have fled their homes, they added.
After slicing across Mindanao on Friday, Tembin sped west over the Sulu Sea with gusts of 95 kilometres an hour.
Tembin struck less than a week after Tropical Storm Kai-Tak devastated the central Philippines, leaving 54 dead and 24 missing.
The
deadliest typhoon to hit the country was Haiyan, which left 7,350
people dead and destroyed entire towns in heavily populated areas of the
central Philippines in November 2013.