Manila (dpa) – More than 1,000 people are still missing in devastating floods that already killed at least 1,080 in the Philippines, the Office of Civil Defense said Friday. Rescuers continued to recover bodies from the seaside villages of the worst-hit cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, said Benito Ramos, the agency's administrator. While the latest agency bulletin said 1,079 were reported missing in the disaster, Ramos said authorities “have lost count of the missing.” “I don't think we will find any more survivors,” he said. “We are now on purely retrieval operations.” Ramos said the operations to retrieve bodies have been expanded to as far as 300 kilometers away from the coast of the two port cities, noting, “The current is very strong so the bodies have been carried far away.” According to the civil defense bulletin, 626 of the missing were reported in Cagayan de Oro and 403 in Iligan City. Another 50 were still unaccounted for in the southern provinces of Bukidnon and Lanao del Sur and the central provinces of Negros and Cebu. The floods were triggered by Tropical Storm Washi, which dumped one month's worth of rains in less than 12 hours. Rivers overflowed and water from nearby mountains cascaded into the cities, washing away entire villages. “It was as if the cities were hit by an inland tsunami. Entire areas were completely flattened; only a few sturdy buildings remain standing,” said Soe Nyunt-U, UN humanitarian coordinator in the Philippines and country director for the World Health Organization. On Thursday, Soe appealed for 28.6 million dollars in aid for the Philippines to help in the relief operations and build temporary shelters for more than 670,000 displaced by the floods. dpa BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/tJ7Yi Tags: Floods, Missing, Philippines Section: East Asia, Environment
