News Khmer

By JIM GOMEZ, Associated Press Writer

(Post by CAAI News Media)

MANILA, Philippines – Landslides buried two families in the Philippines as they sheltered in their homes from Asia's latest deadly typhoon, which killed at least 16 people and left more than a dozen villages flooded Sunday.

Typhoon Parma cut a destructive path across the northern Philippines but spared the capital, Manila. By Sunday afternoon, it was headed toward Taiwan, where troops were evacuating villages in its path.

Philippine Police Senior Superintendent Loreto Espineli said a family of five, including a 1-year-old boy, died when their home in Benguet province was buried as Parma hit Saturday. Seven people, including another family of five, were buried in a nearby village, he said.

Officials had earlier listed four people as being killed in the typhoon in the Philippines.

Parma hit just eight days after an earlier storm left Manila awash in the worst flooding in four decades, killing almost 300 people. Saturday's storm dropped more rain on the capital that slowed the cleanup and made conditions more miserable.

Parma was churning over the South China Sea on Sunday just off the Philippines' coast and moving very slowly, Nilo Frisco, administrator of the Philippines' weather agency, said Sunday afternoon.

Still, the storm's fringes had already begun pummeling eastern and southern Taiwan with heavy rain.

Troops in southern Taiwan helped evacuate villages that could be hit next. Roads were clogged with military trucks and cars taking villagers away from their flood- and mudslide-prone mountain homes.

Television stations showed soldiers making sand bags, using mud that piled up at riverbeds during a deadly typhoon last month. The military said armored personnel carriers were made ready for rescuing villagers in the event of massive flooding.

The Central Weather Bureau said Parma would likely miss the island but heavy rains could still cause major problems.

Tens of thousands of Filipinos fled to higher ground as Parma bore down on the main island of Luzon Saturday, packing winds of 108 mph (175 kph) and driving rain. Towns in half a dozen provinces were battered, landslides cut bridges and downpours swelled rivers, officials said.

About 14 farming villages at the mouth of the Cagayan River were flooded when it overflowed, forcing some residents to clamber onto their roofs, Mayor Ismael Tumaru of nearby Aparri town told The Associated Press by mobile phone.

Philippine navy, coast guard and police rescuers plucked many villagers to safety, he said. Others were huddled in buildings on higher ground, stranded by floodwaters but safe for the moment, he said.

"We're like at sea," Tumaru said as he inspected an inundated village by boat. "This used to be a rice field with roads and power posts. Now, it's just water everywhere."

Power, phone lines and internet links were down across the north, making it difficult to get reports about the extent of damage, said Armand Araneta, an official for several northern provinces.

"We really got the brunt of the wind," he said by phone from Tuguegarao city, capital of Cagayan province. "Many trees fell here. The winds knocked down cables, telephone lines — even our windows got shattered by the strong winds."

Manila escaped the worst of the storm. On Sept. 26, Tropical Storm Ketsana killed at least 288 people and damaged the homes of 3 million in the Philippines, before striking three other Southeast Asian nations. Vietnam on Sunday raised its death toll from Ketsana to 162 from 99, and Cambodia did likewise, to 18 from 16. Laos reported 16 deaths.

Parma came during a week of destruction in the Asia-Pacific region: an earthquake Wednesday in Indonesia, a tsunami Tuesday in the Samoan islands, and Ketsana.

Another typhoon, Melor, was churning Sunday in the Philippine Sea, 1,600 miles (2,575 kilometers) to the east.

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