Authorities said Maoist rebels within the Philippines took advantage of the typhoon’s devastation to attack a military aid convoy yesterday, with the storm’s death toll rising to 41.
Melor, a Category 3 typhoon that made landfall within the central Philippines this week, died out within the South China Sea on Thursday, but left a trail of destruction to agriculture and infrastructure.
Early yesterday morning, guerrillas attacked a military aid convoy, wounding two soldiers, an official in control of disaster management said.
“A military convoy was ambushed after delivering humanitarian aid to typhoon-affected areas,” said Alexander Pama of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
An army spokesman blamed the attack on Maoist-led rebels. The communist New People’s Army has been waging a guerrilla campaign within the region for greater than 4 many years, and the attack got here just five days before a unilateral ceasefire announced by the rebels.
The media reported that 41 people died in consequence of the storm in consequence of falling trees, drowning, electric shock and being buried in the bottom.
Four people were missing, 20 injured and almost 750,000 transported to evacuation centers. About a 3rd are still in shelters and expect to spend next Christmas homeless and without electricity.
The disaster agency said greater than 935 million pesos price of infrastructure and farmland was destroyed as as much as 300 mm of rainfall flooded rice fields on the predominant island of Luzon and robust winds uprooted trees.
Domestic flights and ferry services resumed, but some schools remained closed. After roads were cleared of debris, communications and power were restored in some areas.
About 20 typhoons hit the Philippines yearly. Hundreds of 1000’s of individuals on the island of Luzon have yet to recuperate from Typhoon Koppu, which killed 54 people, caused floods that lasted for greater than every week and destroyed vast swathes of rice crops just before the October harvest.
Truck driver Roberto Mariano, who had been out of labor since Koppu, found the small bungalow he shared with 15 relatives underwater again.
“The floods mean no job and no money for me,” said the 51-year-old, attempting to keep his balance as he walked through strong flood currents in Candaba, about 50 km north of Manila.
Mariano, who earned 500 pesos a day as a driver, was going to his parents’ house to borrow money to purchase rice.
“It’s very difficult here. I have to leave because there is no food at home,” he said.
Mariano said he had spent the last two nights sleepless, watching anxiously as the flood nearly submerged the children’s wooden beds.
Flooding was expected to spread to other parts of the country as a tropical depression, locally called Onyok, reached coastal villages on the main southern island of Mindanao overnight.
Although Onyok will hit land about 700 km from agricultural regions currently affected by flooding, it could still bring rain to those areas, said Esperanza Cayanan, a forecaster for the state weather office.
The weather breakdown comes a week before Christmas, the most celebrated holiday in the predominantly Catholic country of 100 million people.
“We shouldn’t go into holiday mode,” Cayanan said.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
