A Tragic Christmas in the Philippines: At Least 200 Killed in Storm, Dozens Die in Mall Fire – By Daniel Politi (slate.com) / Dec 24 2017
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It was a miserable Christmas weekend in the largely Christian Philippines this year as a powerful storm triggered floods and landslides that killed at least 200 people. And a shopping mall fire in the southern city of Davao that began Saturday morning killed at least 37 people.
Many rescuers spent Christmas Eve searching for survivors of tropical storm Tembin, which hit the southern island of Mindanao late Friday and was much more powerful than many were expecting. The Philippines is regularly battered by strong storms so residents often ignore warnings to evacuate. That is why it seems the ferocity of this latest tropical storm caught so many people by surprise.
“It happened very fast, the flood waters quickly rose filling our house,” farmer Felipe Ybarsabal, 65, told Reuters. “We weren’t able to save anything from the house. There was no help from anyone because it was so fast. Everything was two to three meters under water in less than an hour.”
The badly damaged infrastructure is now hampering relief efforts as bridges and roads have been destroyed or blocked by landslides, according to the BBC. Tembin, which is known as Vinta inside the Philippines, was the 22nd cyclone to enter the Philippines this year. A local politician blamed years of logging in nearby mountains for the tragedy.
https://twitter.com/cnnphilippines/status/944785190504632320
On Sunday, authorities said that the chances of finding survivors among the 37 people who were trapped inside the shopping mall that caught fire the previous day were “zero.” Some people at the mall, including employees of a call center that was on the top floor, found themselves trapped inside the building due to the quick-moving blaze.
“The fire started on the third floor, which houses products like fabrics, wooden furniture and plastic ware, so the fire quickly spread and it’s taking a long time to put out,” said Ralph Canoy, a local police officer.
Philippines mall fire: At least 37 feared dead in Davaohttps://t.co/yyinIf4qQI pic.twitter.com/ingEnHZ2Ir
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) December 24, 2017
