Updated: Friday, 07 December, 2012 at 08:16 UTC
Description
The Philippine government’s geological hazard maps show why this farming community was largely washed away by a strong typhoon: ‘‘highly susceptible to flooding and landslides.’’ That didn’t stop some villagers from rebuilding even with bodies still lying under the mud. Most of the about 420 people confirmed dead from Typhoon Bopha were killed in the steep valley that includes New Bataan, a town crisscrossed by rivers and cleared from lush hillsides by banana, coconut, cocoa and mango farmers in 1968. Flooding was so widespread here that places people thought were safe, including two emergency shelters, became among the deadliest. In the impoverished Philippines, the jobless risk life and limb to feed their families and the government can do little beyond warning of the danger. Nearly 400 people were missing Friday after the typhoon struck the southern Philippines this week.

After a night of pounding rain, floodwaters started rising around 4 a.m. Tuesday, trapping farmer Joseph Requinto, his wife and two young children in their house near a creek. Interior Secretary Mar Roxas saw New Bataan covered in 15 centimeters (6 inches) of mud. He was told by townspeople that a pond or a small lake atop the mountain collapsed, causing torrents of water to rampage like a waterfall. Dozens of people stared blankly at their devastated town as they waited at a government information center, hoping for word of missing relative. Authorities planned to display about 80 newly washed bodies in coffins at a Roman Catholic church Friday, hoping relatives will identify them. Authorities said about 215 people died in Compostela Valley and more than 151 in nearby Davao Oriental province, with the rest in other central and southern provinces. The typhoon, which hit the region with winds of 175 kph (109 mph), was weakening and expected to dissipate in the South China Sea by the weekend.

The 20 or so tropical storms that hit the Philippines each year strike its northern and central regions more often than the southern provinces pummeled by Bopha, but still, deadly floods are common on resource-rich Mindanao Island. On another part of the island last December, 1,200 people died when a powerful storm overflowed rivers. Then and now, raging flash floods, logs and large rocks carried people to their deaths. The Bureau of Mines and Geosciences had issued warnings before the typhoon to people living in flood-prone areas, but in the Compostela Valley, nearly every area is flood-prone.
[link to hisz.rsoe.hu]