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    Typhoon bears down on flood-hit Philippine towns
    (Agencies)
    Updated: 2004-12-01 21:21

    REAL, Philippines - Rescuers dug with their bare hands Wednesday to find survivors from landslides and floods that killed up to 600 people in a part of the northern Philippines due to be hit by a typhoon in just over 24 hours.

    Residents of coastal towns worst hit by heavy rains early this week said food and water were running low as rescuers were forced to carry supplies on foot after roads were cut off and bad weather grounded rescue helicopters.

    President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered a nationwide crackdown on the illegal logging believed to have worsened the landslides and told officials to do everything possible to protect people from the coming typhoon.

    But the isolated location of the towns and worsening weather conditions made them inaccessible by sea or air, forcing hundreds of residents to wade for miles through deep mud for help.

    "Food and water supplies are running low and the stench of decomposing bodies is starting to overcome us," said Ros Calma, 37, who walked eight hours to escape Real, one of the three towns in Quezon province east of Manila.

    "We are worried that an epidemic might break out."

    Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes said up to 600 people may have been killed in landslides and floods that hit several areas in the main northern island of Luzon. Citing police reports, he said 412 people were confirmed dead, 63 injured and 177 missing.

    In Real, rescuers used sticks and bare hands to search for friends and relatives who had taken shelter in a large building that then collapsed.

    Neri Amparo, an official at the National Disaster Coordinating Center, said more than 70 could have been buried alive when boulders swept by mudslides smashed into the building.

    "So far, only 25 bodies have been found," she said.

    Decades of logging have cut forest cover in the Philippines from 34 percent in 1970 to 18 percent now, according to the Environmental Science for Social Change, a local activist group.

    The government imposed a selective log ban after widespread floods in the early 1990s, but numerous "crackdowns" have failed to halt a trade that is worth millions of dollars a year to smugglers and corrupt politicians.

    "Illegal logging must now be placed in the most serious crimes against our people," Arroyo said Wednesday.

    TYPHOON BEARING DOWN

    Meteorological officials said Typhoon Nanmadol, packing winds of 108 mph at its center, was gaining strength and was expected to hit the east coast late Thursday or on Friday.

    "We haven't seen anything like this since the start of the year, said Rose Asejo, an official at the national weather bureau. "It's a super typhoon with a wider coverage and very strong winds."

    The weather was already worsening.

    Attempts to reach the towns with the country's few rescue helicopters failed and a navy ship ferrying relief supplies to Real was stuck there due to high waves and logs in the sea.

    Soldiers helping in rescue efforts faced the added danger of attacks by communist rebels, who have a strong presence in the Sierra Madre mountains along the eastern coastline.

    The military said 10 soldiers were killed and six wounded in an ambush by New People's Army rebels in Bulacan province on Tuesday.

    Some flood victims had lucky escapes.

    One 20-year-old man and his heavily pregnant wife were swept along in a flooded river for two hours, surviving by clinging to a water jug and a banana crate before being fished out by a local resident, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

    "My body was getting numb ... I was ready to give up," the newspaper quoted the man, Dante Runes, as saying.



     
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