Philippine storm victims feared tsunami, ran towards mudslide
- Officials fear 80 to 100 more people, including entire families, may have been buried by the deluge or washed away by flash floods in Kusiong
- Despite annual disaster-preparedness drills, villagers in Kusiong lacked focus regarding geo-hazards on the mountainside
Victims of a huge mudslide set off by a storm in a coastal Philippine village that had once been devastated by a killer tsunami mistakenly thought a tidal wave was coming and ran to higher ground towards a mountain and were buried alive, an official said on Sunday.
At least 18 bodies have been dug out by rescuers in the vast muddy mound that now covers much of Kusiong village in southern Maguindanao province, among the hardest hit by Tropical Storm Nalgae, which blew out of northwestern Philippines early on Sunday.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has ordered officials to declare a state of calamity in provinces worst affected by Nalgae. He wants a state of calamity declared for the badly-hit Bicol region in the southernmost part of Luzon and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, his press secretary said in a statement.
The president is also weighing a recommendation from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council to declare a national state of calamity for one year, which would trigger a price freeze and the release of emergency funds.
Officials fear 80 to 100 more people, including entire families, may have been buried by the deluge or washed away by flash floods in Kusiong between Thursday night and early Friday, according to Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a Muslim autonomous region run by former separatist guerillas.
Nalgae, which had a vast rain band, left more than 50 people dead in a wide swathe of the Philippine archipelago, including in Kusiong, and a trail of destruction in one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.