MANILA, Sept 29: Emergency workers mounted a massive clean-up operation on Friday after the strongest typhoon to pound Manila in a decade left a trail of devastation, at least 40 people dead and millions more without power before heading toward Vietnam.
Typhoon Xangsane ripped off roofs, tore up trees and power lines and sent debris hurtling into the air after piling through the Philippines at a maximum 130kms per hour from before dawn Thursday.
Xangsane was reported on Friday to be barrelling across the South China Sea toward Vietnam, which has braced for its expected arrival on Sunday by putting coastal provinces on high alert and preparing for evacuations.
Financial markets and schools remained closed in Manila as a huge clean-up operation began across the sprawling city of 12 million people.
The civil defense office said 40 people were confirmed dead following the typhoon.
Some 14 were killed by a landslide on Friday near the capital while others died from falling debris and trees on Thursday.
At least 12 other people were listed by the civil defense office as missing although some local rescue teams said as many as 30 others might be missing, washed away by floodwaters.
Rescue workers in Cavite province, just south of Manila, said they had recovered two bodies of people swept away by floodwaters. The civil defense office could not confirm the report.
Hundreds of homes were destroyed and 19 key roads and bridges left impassable due to damage or continuing floods, the office added.
An initial estimate of damage to crops and infrastructure was placed at 13 million dollars, government officials said. But it added that the damage in many places had yet to be quantified.
“The wind was so loud and the rain so heavy that it sounded like bricks falling on the roof,” said Daisy Arevalo, a maid in Taguig, one of Manila’s poorer suburbs.
“The tin roof on the back of the house was ripped off by the wind and disappeared,” she added.—AFP
