Philippines, Typhoon Bopha: 52 Dead and Four Missing

The heaviest human toll has so far been recorded in New Bataan, a city inaccessible on the island of Mindanao. "I counted 43 bodies on the ground," testified at a reporter phone chain Local TV ABS-CBN, Vina Araneta, who was in the administration building, temporarily transformed into a morgue, New Bataan. Its mayor, Lorenzo Balbin, said many of the bodies came from a nearby village where flash floods have swept Army installations.

Fifty-six thousand displaced

Questioned by AFP, Lieutenant-Colonel Lyndon Paniza, military spokesman of the southern region, has just confirmed that a base had been hit and a soldier drowned. The provincial governor Arturo Uy announced a military truck carrying soldiers and civilians had been carried away. Manila officials merely confirmed the death of eight people in other places in Mindanao and ninth out of the island, three of which were killed by falling trees. Four fishermen were off the eastern coast of Mindanao are also missing.

Bopha landfall Tuesday at dawn from the east of the island, with winds reaching 210 km / h and heavy rains. By early evening, the typhoon, which had lost its strength, continued his run in the Sulu Sea, after changing course in the afternoon to head west, according to meteorological services. Many people of Mindanao were still plunged into darkness Tuesday night.

More than 56,000 people have left their homes by the sea, along rivers and in flood risk areas likely to experience landslides, and found refuge in a thousand public shelters, schools often or churches. A total of 146 flights to and from Mindanao and the central islands of the Philippine archipelago have been canceled since Monday and more than 3000 passengers ferries were stranded on land, ships being ordered to stay in port , said civil defense.