Typhoon Bopha triggers landslides, weakens

Added by Nigel Shelbourne on December 4, 2012

Typhoon Bopha weakened and storm warnings were lifted over affected areas in Mindanao as the storm moved over the Sulu Sea toward northern Palawan, reported the Philippines weather bureau PAGASA.

At least 33 civilians and soldiers drowned in Andap village in New Bataan town in Compostela Valley when torrents of water dumped by the powerful typhoon, also known as Pablo, caused a landslide engulfing emergency shelters and an army truck, officials said. The deaths raised the death toll to at least 73 and displacing more than 60,000.

A survivor of the land slide, whose house was hit by several boulders, said three children in the house were killed.

“The only thing we could do was to save ourselves. It was too late for us to rescue them,” said Valentin Pabilana, the survivor the landslide.

Typhoon Pablo (it is referred to as Bopha internationally) is forecast to be 750km west of Manila by Thursday morning, well out of the Philippines.

The storm is reported to have sustained winds of 140 km/h with gusts up to 170 km/h – it is moving northwest at 24 km/h and is located 145 km southwest of Iloilo which occupies the southeast portion of Panay Island.