Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options

The destruction from Typhoon Bopha in portions of Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, is worse than feared as rescue workers continued to discover bodies under knee-deep mud, said a Catholic Relief Services official who coordinates the agency’s storm response in early December. “It looks like a tsunami hit. It’s just complete and total destruction. Whole hillsides were washed away in flash floods,” said Joe Curry, the C.R.S. country representative. “The staff there have been through a half dozen typhoons and floods in the Philippines, and they say this is probably the worst,” Curry added. Typhoon Bopha made landfall on the east coast of Mindanao on Dec. 4, lashing the island with 120-mph winds and torrential rains. Curry said that a C.R.S. team reached New Bataan, a city of about 80,000 in the Compostela Valley, on Dec. 6 and found much of the community under mud and without electricity. At press time the death toll was more than 700 and expected to climb higher.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

I use a motorized wheelchair and communication device because of my disability, cerebral palsy. Parishes were not prepared to accommodate my needs nor were they always willing to recognize my abilities.
Margaret Anne Mary MooreNovember 22, 2024
Nicole Scherzinger as ‘Norma Desmond’ and Hannah Yun Chamberlain as ‘Young Norma’ in “Sunset Blvd” on Broadway at the St. James Theatre (photo: Marc Brenner).
Age and its relationship to stardom is the animating subject of “Sunset Blvd,” “Tammy Faye” and “Death Becomes Her.”
Rob Weinert-KendtNovember 22, 2024
What separates “Bonhoeffer” from the myriad instructive Holocaust biographies and melodramas is its timing.
John AndersonNovember 22, 2024
“Wicked” arrives on a whirlwind of eager (and anxious) anticipation among fans of the musical.
John DoughertyNovember 22, 2024