MAHINOG, Nov 8: A devastating storm which ripped through the Philippines’ central and southern regions may have killed as many as 350 people, most of them in an area dubbed “paradise island,” officials said on Thursday.

At least 115 bodies have been recovered in four provinces while 234 were still missing and feared dead on the southern island of Camiguin, regional civil defence director Casiano Matela said.

“They are buried under three metres of mud. I think they are all dead,” Matela said, referring to those missing on Camiguin where rescue teams pressed on with their search, fighting the heavy stench of corpses.

A day after a river of mud and boulders tumbled down from the hills and flattened hundreds of houses on Camiguin, tropical storm Lingling ripped through the central Visayas region, triggering more floods and landslides.

The storm pummelled the central islands of Cebu, Panay and Negros on Thursday and was expected to hit Palawan island in the west on Friday before exiting out into the South China Sea heading toward Vietnam, the weather bureau said.

19 seamen missing: Nineteen Filipino crew members were missing on Thursday after a Panama-flagged cargo vessel sank off the northern Philippines coast amid a tropical storm, the coastguard said.

Big waves stirred by tropical storm Lingling caused the 5,800- ton Ho Feng 8 to tip over and eventually sink in rough seas some 78 nautical miles northeast of Dasol town in northern Pangasinan province, Lieutenant Commander Gonzalo Magno said.

Preliminary coastguard reports had incorrectly identified the vessel as Hoseng 8.

Coastguard vessels and air force helicopters have been dispatched to the area to join the search, the transportation department here said.

However, stormy weather was preventing them from entering the area, Magno said.

The ship, owned by Sang Feng Marine Co., was en route to Hong Kong from Indonesia with a cargo of logs and had been properly informed of the cyclone, Magno said.

“The waves are very big in that area causing the cable binding the logs to snap and tilting the vessel,” Magno said. Search and rescue teams have been dispatched to the area but were having difficulty reaching the site amid stormy weather, he said. None of the 19 crewmen have been found. —Reuters / AFP