{"id":27513,"date":"2018-12-31T09:22:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T09:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27513"},"modified":"2018-12-31T09:22:20","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T09:22:20","slug":"death-toll-in-philippines-floods-landslides-rises-to-68","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27513","title":{"rendered":"Death toll in Philippines floods, landslides rises to 68"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The death toll from flash floods<\/a> and landslides caused by torrential rains due to a tropical depression<\/a> in the eastern Philippines<\/a> has jumped to at least 68, officials have said, warning that the number of fatalities will climb even higher.<\/p>\n

Fifty-seven of the victims were reported in the eastern region of Bicol, located south of the main island of Luzon,\u00a0civil defence officials said on Monday.\u00a0<\/span>Eleven others died in the nearby region of Eastern Visayas.<\/p>\n

Twelve people were also injured in various accidents in the two regions most affected by the rains even days before the tropical depression\u00a0– known locally as Usman – made landfall<\/a> in Eastern Samar province on Saturday.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/span><\/p>\n

More than 22,000 people were displaced by the bad weather<\/a>, which also knocked out electricity in many of the affected areas, regional civil defence officials said.<\/p>\n

Search and rescue operations were ongoing for the missing, while emergency teams were also clearing some roads and bridges made impassable by landslides<\/a> and floods.<\/p>\n

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Pedestrians and vehicles move along a flooded street in Daet [Robert Balidoy\/via Reuters]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Meanwhile, thousands of passengers were stranded at seaports, airports and bus terminals as dozens of inter-island trips were cancelled.<\/p>\n

The tropical depression weakened into a low-pressure area, but was continuing to bring heavy rains over the eastern provinces, enhanced by a cold front and the northeast monsoon, the weather bureau said.<\/p>\n

The bad weather would also affect the capital, Manila, and other parts of the country, which could dampen usually rowdy New Year’s Eve celebrations.<\/p>\n

Each year, the Philippines is struck by an average of 20 cyclones<\/a> causing floods, landslides and other accidents.<\/p>\n

One of the strongest in recent memory, Typhoon Haiyan, hit the country in November 2013, killing more than 6,300 people and displacing more four million others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The death toll from flash floods and landslides caused by torrential rains due to a tropical depression in the eastern Philippines has jumped to at least 68, officials have said, warning that the number of fatalities will climb even higher. Fifty-seven of the victims were reported in the eastern region of Bicol, located south of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}