Eight rescued from Thai cave, but five remain trapped

Yahoo – AFP, Thanaporn PROMYAMYAI, Richard SARGENT, July 9, 2018

Thai soldiers walk out from the Tham Luang cave area as operations continue
for the 8 boys and their coach trapped inside (AFP Photo/YE AUNG THU)

Elite divers hauled four more young footballers out of a flooded Thai cave on Monday, authorities said, bringing to eight the number saved in a stunning rescue mission but still leaving five others trapped.

"Hooyah," the Thai Navy SEALs, who have played a crucial role in the against-the-odds operation, said in a Facebook post as they announced that a total of eight members of the "Wild Boars" football team had been rescued on Sunday and Monday.

Thais have been fixated on the crisis, hoping desperately for the safe return of the 12 boys and their 25-year-old football coach, after they ventured into the Tham Luang cave complex after practice and became trapped by rising waters more than a fortnight ago.

The extraction of the four on Monday followed a similar pattern to the previous day, with the youngsters emerging in quick succession just before nightfall after navigating a treacherous escape route of more than four kilometres (2.5 miles) that included extremely narrow and flooded tunnels.

Although the rescued eight were all presumed to be the boys, aged between 11 and 16, authorities did not reveal their identities nor confirm whether the coach remained inside the cave.

Asked if the remaining five would be shuttled out together, rescue operations chief Narongsak Osottanakorn said it was up to the divers whose meticulous plans, including stashing extra oxygen tanks along the route, are "set for four people, if we bring five we have to change the plan".

In a late-night press conference he also delivered a message from Thai premier Prayut Chan-O-Cha, a gruff former general:

"The Prime Minister wants this to be a lesson, this should not happen again in Thailand," Narongsak said.

The saga has dominated global headlines, with the team spending nine days unaccounted for inside the cave, before British divers found them -- emaciated and dishevelled -- huddling on a muddy bank above the flooding.

Diagram of the Tham Luang cave and facts on the operation to free a trapped 

football team. (AFP Photo/Gal ROMA)

Authorities then struggled to determine the best way to save the "Wild Boars", with the group stuck on a shelf above the floodwaters in pitch darkness.

Among the ideas were drilling an escape route through the mountain, or leaving them for months until the monsoon season ended and the flooding subsided.

But with oxygen levels inside dropping to dangerous lows and the prospect of heavy rains flooding the area completely, authorities decided they had to move quickly and take the group out through the water-filled tunnels.

Deadly dangers

Narongsak described Sunday's initial rescue bid as "D-Day" when it was launched, and there were fears that any one of many potential pitfalls could prove deadly.

Among these were that none of the boys had scuba diving experience, and that they could easily panic while swimming underwater across twisted passageways in darkness.

Dozens of foreign divers and other experts from around the world were brought in to help the rescue effort, working alongside the Thai Navy SEALs.

But the death of a former Thai Navy SEAL diver who ran out of oxygen in the cave on Friday underscored the danger of the journey.

The first successes on Sunday offered hope of a fairytale ending to the ordeal.

Rescue chief Narongsak on Sunday described their journey out, escorted by the elite divers, as "smooth".

A man offers food to Buddhist monks near the hospital where the boys rescued 

after being trapped in a nearby cave for nearly two weeks have been brought 

for observation (AFP Photo/TANG CHHIN Sothy)

Crucially, round-the-clock pumping to ease some of the flooding paid off and threatened heavy rains did not arrive.

That led an upbeat Narongsak to promise more "good news" on Monday afternoon that materialised a few hours later with the emergence of the other four.

But although the eight were rescued, there were concerns they may have contracted an illness while in the cave.

Narongsak said after the first four boys were rescued that they would be quarantined "for a while because we are concerned about infections".

And rain could still re-emerge as a threat for the remaining five, particularly if there are complications that could delay the extraction further.

Authorities have repeatedly said the rain could re-flood crucial parts of the cave complex that have been drained and make the escape route much harder or even impossible to navigate.

Weather forecasters warned heavy rain could hit the area through the week.

Premier Prayut visited the rescue base on Monday night to deliver his congratulations to all those involved, but also to offer a note of caution.

"Everyone should be proud. (But) the mission is not over yet," Prayut said.

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All 12 boys and coach rescued from Thai cave

Floods kill 175 in India, Nepal and Bangladesh

Yahoo – AFP, Prakash MATHEMA, August 14, 2017

Nepali residents look at the water in a flooded area in the Birgunj Parsa district,
some 200km south of Kathmandu (AFP Photo/Manish Paudel)

At least 175 people have died and thousands have fled their homes as monsoon floods swept across Nepal, India and Bangladesh, officials said Monday, warning the toll could rise as the extent of the damage becomes clear.

Three days of relentless downpours sparked flash floods and landslides that have killed at least 80 people in Nepal, 73 across northern and eastern India and 22 in Bangladesh.

Around 200,000 people are living in emergency camps in Assam in northeast India, which suffers frequent flooding during the annual monsoon rains.

Another 15,000 have had to leave their homes in the eastern state of Bihar, which borders Nepal and where one official said seven rivers were at danger levels.

Large parts of the state were submerged in 2008 when a river burst its banks across the border in Nepal, with the two countries trading blame for the disaster.

All trains to the northeast have been suspended until Wednesday, with sections of the track completely submerged in water, Indian railway spokesman Anil Saxena told AFP.

Map of Nepal and northern India, where monsoon floods and landslides have

killed at least 94 people. (AFP Photo)

In Nepal, ariel photos taken by an AFP photographer showed huge swathes of land in the southeast still underwater Monday afternoon.

Police said over 48,000 homes have been totally submerged by the floods across Nepal's southern planes.

As emergency workers struggled to reach far-flung areas, the country's home ministry said another 36 people were missing, presumed dead, revising down an earlier count after more bodies were found.

The Nepal Red Cross warned that shortages of safe drinking water and food could create a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished Himalayan country.

"In many parts of the country there is a scarcity of safe drinking water creating a high risk of health hazards," spokesman Dibya Raj Poudel told AFP.

"Several villages and settlements are unreachable. Telecommunications, mobile phones are still not working so it is difficult to give a full assessment."

A local volunteer in Saptari district -- one of the worst affected areas -- said the water level was receding but many people were still stranded on higher ground.

Nearly 150 people have been killed in Nepal since the beginning of the rainy 

season in late June (AFP Photo)

"Water level has decreased a little bit but families still cannot return home. They are taking shelter in sheds. What people need now is clean drinking water and food," volunteer Dipak Kumar Yadav told AFP.

On the outskirts of Janakpur, in southeastern Nepal, local residents were sheltering in a local temple after the flood waters had totally destroyed their basic mud homes, though the water had mostly receded.

In India, emergency workers were scouring the area hit by a massive landslide that swept two passenger buses into a deep gorge on Sunday, killing at least 46 people in the mountainous northern state of Himachal Pradesh.

In the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand -- which also borders Nepal -- three people were killed in a landslide late Sunday triggered by heavy rains, local police official Ajay Joshi told AFP.

Bangladesh deploys troops

Bangladesh deployed troops to shore up embankments in the north of the country, where flooding has killed 22 people.

Local government administrator Kazi Hasan Ahmed told AFP up to 700,000 people had been marooned by flood waters after rivers burst their banks following days of heavy rain.

"We've not seen such severe floods in Dinajpur since 1988," he said, referring to the worst-hit district.

Three days of relentless downpours sparked flash floods and landslides that 

have killed 73 across northern and eastern India (AFP Photo/Arindam DEY)

"The town protection embankment was washed away by flood water, submerging most of the main town."

The government's Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre warned that water levels in some major rivers would continue to rise over the next 72 hours, raising fears the flooding could spread.

In Nepal, the worst of the flooding was in the southern lowlands known as the Terai, the country's most fertile region and home to much of its agriculture.

"We are getting reports that about 70 percent of agriculture area in the Tarai is inundated," said Shankar Sapkota, senior agricultural economist with the government.

"Paddy fields, vegetable plantation and fish farms have been affected but right now we cannot confirm the extent of damage."

Nearly 150 people have been killed in Nepal since the beginning of the rainy season in late June.

The rains are now expected to shift westwards and authorities in Nepal have begun evacuating 74,000 people from a vulnerable western district.

Hundreds have died in torrential rain, floods and landslides in neighbouring India during the monsoon, which hits the country's southern tip in early June and sweeps across the nation, lasting into September.

Dutch firm wins Bangladesh coastal protection contract

DutchNews.nl, January 5, 2015

Volkskrant

Dutch civil engineering group Royal HaskoningDHV has won a contract to develop and oversee the construction of a major coastal protection plan in Bangladesh.

The six-year contract has a value of €10.5m and will protect the low-lying country against nature disasters and the impact of climate change.

The total project, which is funded by the World Bank, covers some 1,000 square kilometres.

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India-Pakistan flood disaster prompts frantic rescue bid

Yahoo – AFP, Bhuvan Bagga, 8 Sep 2014

Residents stand on a roof as raging waters from the overflowing Tawi river

inundate a Hindu Temple in Jammu on September 6, 2014 (AFP Photo)

Authorities in India and Pakistan made frantic efforts Monday to pluck tens of thousands of people to safety from floods which have killed at least 350 as desperate residents huddled on rooftops.

With phone lines down and roads cut off, the full scale of the disaster in the cross-border Kashmir region and in Pakistan's Punjab province was still to emerge but video footage shot from army helicopters showed entire villages under water, with only tin roofs visible.

As Pakistan's premier toured some of the worst-hit areas, India deployed naval commandos as part of a massive relief effort.

Indian residents look on towards threatened

 houses as waters from the overflowing Tawi

 river rage past in Jammu on September 6, 

2014 (AFP Photo/STRDEL)

Some of the famous shikara wooden boats, which ferry tourists across the Dal Lake in Indian Kashmir's main city of Srinagar, were pressed into service to reach isolated homes.

Divers toiled to help bring people to safety while residents on both sides could be seen waving from rooftops as vehicles and livestock were washed away by surging waters below them.

Disaster officials say at least 350 villages have been submerged on the Indian side of the de facto border in Kashmir by monsoon rains, making it the deadliest flooding there in over half a century.

Thousands of troops, police and other emergency personnel, backed by helicopters and boats, fanned out across the state to deliver relief supplies, including protein biscuits and bottles of drinking water.

Others were being fed in mass volunteer-run kitchens set up by mosques.

An Indian soldier carries a toddler as

 evacuated families alight from an Indian

 Air Force Mi-17 helicopter flying a rescue

 sortie in the Rajouri district of Jammu

 and Kashmir on September 7, 2014

(AFP Photo)

The home ministry said around 20,000 people had been rescued so far but the head of the army's northern command said many more remained marooned.

"For the next 48 hours, our focus remains on Srinagar and South Kashmir because there are still large numbers of people who are stranded and who are without any food and water," General D.S. Hooda told reporters.

"It's our idea to get them out as soon as possible. We will continue... until everyone is pulled out of this situation."

An Indian Navy spokesman said teams of divers were working "day and night" to rescue survivors.

Airport cut off

Srinagar airport was cut off from the city by heavy flooding just 700 yards outside the terminal, according to an AFP correspondent.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks

 over a flood-affected area from an 

aeroplane during a visit to the state of 

Jammu and Kashmir on September 7, 

2014 (AFP Photo/PIB)

Delhi resident R. S. Gandhi was stuck at the airport after flying up from the capital to rescue his in-laws.

"The last time I was able to speak to them was yesterday and they had already moved up to the second floor of their building. Twelve feet of water had come into their building in just three hours," he told AFP.

"Now that I am here I don't know what to do next, how I can help or get them back to Delhi."

Communications were lost Sunday when the rain-swollen Jhelum river flooded large parts of Srinagar. Srinagar's main hospital and army barracks were among the buildings badly hit.

There was no fresh rainfall Monday and forecasters said only light drizzle was likely in the next few days. But Indian officials warned the death toll of 150 was bound to rise.

Refuge on roofs

Residents sit by the rubble of collapsed

houses which were destroyed by flood

waters from the raging Tawi river in Jammu

 on September 7, 2014 (AFP Photo/STRDEL)

In Pakistan officials said the number of dead on their side now stood at 206, with most killed in Punjab province.

Helicopters, troops and other emergency personnel have been deployed, according to Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif handed out compensation cheques to flood victims at Rawalakot in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

"There is no compensation for life, but government will help the affected brothers and sisters to rebuild their homes," he said.

In the remote mountainous district of Haveli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, landslides have caused major damage to roads and electricity supplies, leaving residents without power or drinking water for days.

Pakistani residents wait to be evacuated

 by boat from the flood-affected town of 

Jalalpur Bhattian in the Hafizabad district

 of Punjab province on September 8, 2014

(AFP Photo/Arif Ali)

Local politician Masood Rathor said there was a shortage of food and medicine in the area, with only one doctor to treat the population.

Tariq Umer, 38, a labourer, told of his desperate struggle to save his family and possessions.

"I was sleeping with my wife and three children when the floodwaters came at around midnight. I barely managed to get my family out and could not save anything from the house," he told AFP.

"My house and all my belongings have been swept away in the water and I have been left with nothing. Now I am taking my family to relatives for refuge."

Raja Moazam, deputy director of the disaster management authority, told AFP the death toll in Pakistani Kashmir now stood at 64.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi toured his country's sector of Kashmir Sunday, describing the situation as "a national-level disaster" and also offering relief assistance to Sharif.

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Floods kill more than two dozen in Vietnam, displacing tens of thousands

Deutsche Welle, 17 November 2013

Floods have killed more than two dozen people in Vietnam. About 80,000 people have been displaced during the floods, caused by heavy rain from a new tropical depression in the South China Sea.

On Sunday, television footage showed inundated houses and streets in the town of Hoi An and the former Imperial City of Hue, both among Vietnam's many UNESCO World Heritage sites, where authorities have evacuated hundreds of tourists. At least 28 people have died over several days of flooding, the most destructive since 1999.

"More than 100,000 houses have been flooded and transport by road, air and rail has been severely affected across the region," said Nguyen Quang Trung, an official in the coastal city of Danang who added that the floods have hit several central provinces. Nguyen said that "rain continued to fall on Sunday morning in the coastal provinces of Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh - where at least 20 people were killed," and estimated the initial property damage at about $65 million (48 million euros).

Officials evacuated hundreds of thousands of people over a week ago before the arrival of Typhoon Haiyan, which killed an estimated 4,000 people in the Philippines before crossing the South China Sea. However, the typhoon weakened before reaching Vietnam's coast, sparing the country the damage it did to the Philippines.

The current storm, caused by a tropical depression, still managed to catch the country off-guard.

"I have never seen such a large-scale flood in Binh Dinh province in the past 30 years" Phan Xuan Hai, director of the regional Committee for Storm and Flood Control, told the news agency dpa on Friday.

mkg/hc (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)

India floods: 'Thousands still missing' in Uttarakhand

BBC News, 1 July 2013

Nearly 100,000 pilgrims and tourists have been rescued so far

Related Stories

• In pictures: Uttarakhand after floods
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Nearly 3,000 people are still missing following floods and landslides which hit India's Uttarakhand state a fortnight ago, the chief minister of the state has said.

More than 800 people are reported to have been killed so far but Vijay Bahuguna said the exact number of deaths may never be known.

Hundreds of people are still trapped in the Badrinath area, reports say.

Some 100,000 people have already been evacuated from the flood-hit region.

This year's early monsoon rains in the Uttarakhand region are believed to be the heaviest in 80 years.

Swollen rivers have swept away entire villages in the state, where there were many travellers in what is peak tourist season.

"We will never know the exact number of the dead and the number of people buried or washed away," Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna told the Press Trust of India news agency.

"According to my information about 3,000 people are still missing. We will compensate their families. They have to give an affidavit saying that their relatives have not returned home for more than 30 days."

Officials say many bodies may have been washed away or remain buried under debris. Some of the bodies were recovered in rivers downstream from the flood zone.

Distraught relatives clutching photographs of missing family members have been waiting for days in the state capital, Dehradun, hoping for news.

The Indian military has been flying helicopters into the mountains to evacuate tens of thousands of people trapped by damaged roads and landslides.

Reports say some 900 Hindu pilgrims and tourists are still stranded in the Badrinath, one of the worst-affected areas. They are expected to be evacuated on Monday.

While most of the stranded people have been rescued, the extent of the damage to the local communities is still unclear.

Beijing chaos after record floods in Chinese capital

BBC News, 22 July 2012

Chaos at the capital's Guangqumen overpass as cars are deluged

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The heaviest rainfall to hit China's capital Beijing in 60 years has left 10 people dead and stranded thousands at the main airport.

The deluge struck on Saturday afternoon and continued into the night, flooding major roads, state media said.

Roof collapses, lightning strikes and electrocution from downed power lines were among the causes of the deaths.

More than 500 flights were cancelled at the main airport, the Beijing News reported.

State news agency Xinhua said 460mm (18.1 in) fell in Beijing's Fangshan district, with the capital as a whole averaging 170mm.

It said 14,500 people, mostly in outlying districts, had to be evacuated.

"There could be further large-scale storms or extreme weather," the Beijing city government's website said.

Outside the capital, four people died in the northern province of Shanxi when their truck was swept into a river, Xinhua reported.

A further six people were killed by landslides in Sichuan province, in the southwest, the agency said.

'Like a waterfall'

British student Tom Smith, who has been living in China for a year, told the BBC it was like "standing under a waterfall.

"All the manholes had vanished because the water was sitting on top of them. It looked very dangerous and very difficult to find where these holes were," he said.

Another Briton in Beijing, 20-year-old Reece Ayers, described "terrifying loud bolts of lightning and truly relentless downpours.

"Old women could be seen wading through the streets and shop owners desperately tried to tunnel water from their establishments.

"Waves of water would send bicycles tumbling and rubbish bins floating.

"I was terrified, most of all, by the thought of tumbling down a manhole without a cover after a friend told me that several people had died that way last year."

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Flash Floods Kill More Than 500 in Philippines

Jakarta Globe, December 18, 2011

A view of a devastated town swept away by rampaging flood waters in Kala-kala
 village, Cagayan De Oro City, southern Mindanao, Philippines on Sunday. Rescuers 
struggled to search for hundreds of missing in floods that devastated the southern
 Philippines. Around 539 were killed in the floods and landslides triggered by Tropical
Storm Washi, which slammed into the country on Friday. (EPA Photo/Dennis M. Sabangan)

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Iligan, Philippines. Tropical Storm Washi blew away on Sunday after devastating a wide swath of the southern Philippines with flash floods that killed at least 521 people as they slept and turned two coastal cities into a muddy wasteland filled with overturned cars and uprooted trees.

With nearly 500 people missing, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and top military officials were to fly to the worst-hit city of Cagayan de Oro to help oversee search-and-rescue efforts and deal with thousands of displaced villagers, as the weather began to clear and floodwaters receded. Among the items urgently needed are coffins and body bags, said Benito Ramos, who heads the government’s disaster-response agency.

“It’s overwhelming. We didn’t expect these many dead,” Ramos said.

Edmund Rubio, a 44-year-old engineer, said he, his wife and two children scrambled to the second floor of their house in Iligan city as raging floodwaters engulfed the first floor, destroying his TV set and other appliances and washing away his car and motorcycle.

Amid the panic, he heard a loud pounding on his door as his neighbors living in nearby one-story houses pleaded with him to allow them into one of his second-floor rooms. He said he brought 30 of his neighbors into the safety of the second floor of his house, which later shook when a huge, floating log slammed into it.

“It’s the most important thing, that all of us will still be together this Christmas,” Rubio told The Associated Press. “There was a nearby shantytown that was smashed by water. I’m afraid many people there may not have been as lucky as us.”

Army officers reported unidentified bodies piled up in morgues in Cagayan de Oro, where electricity was restored in some areas, although the city of more than 500,000 people remained without tap water.

Philippine Red Cross Secretary General Gwendolyn Pang told the AP that at least 521 people had died in the floods, mostly children and women, and that 458 others were reported missing.

The death toll will most likely rise because many villages remain isolated and unreached by overwhelmed disaster-response personnel. The worst-hit cities were Cagayan de Oro, where at least 239 people died, and nearby Iligan, where Red Cross aid workers reported 195 dead, Pang said.

“Our fear is there may have been whole families that perished so there’s nobody to report what happened,” Pang said. “Many areas remain isolated and strewn with debris and unreached by rescue teams.”

Tropical Storm Washi started to blow away toward the South China Sea on Sunday after slamming into the western province of Palawan, allowing the weather to clear and disaster-response contingents to intensify search-and-rescue work.

Most of the victims were asleep Friday night when raging floodwaters cascaded from the mountains with logs and uprooted trees after 12 hours of rain from the late-season tropical storm in Mindanao. The region is unaccustomed to the typhoons that are common to the north of the Philippine archipelago.

Both Iligan, a bustling industrial center about 485 miles (780 kilometers) southeast of Manila, and Cagayan de Oro were filled with scenes of destruction and desperation.

A swollen river sent floodwaters gushing through neighborhoods that do not usually experience flooding. A man floated in an inner tube in muddy water littered with plastic buckets, pieces of wood and other debris. Ten people in one home stood on a sloping roof, waiting for rescuers even as water still flooded the lower floors.

Local television footage showed muddy water rushing in the streets, sweeping away all sorts of debris. Thick layers of mud coated streets where the waters had subsided. One car was thrown over a concrete fence and others were crushed and piled atop each other in a flooded canal.

Benito Ramos, who heads the government’s Office of Civil Defense, attributed the high casualties in Mindanao “partly to the complacency of people because they are not in the usual path of storms” despite four days of warnings by officials that one was approaching.

Thousands of soldiers and hundreds of local police, reservists, coast guard officers and civilian volunteers were mobilized for rescue efforts, but they were hampered by the flooded-out roads and lack of electricity.

Authorities recovered bodies from the mud after the water subsided. Parts of concrete walls and roofs, toppled vehicles and other debris littered the streets.

Rescuers in boats rushed offshore to save people swept out to sea. In Misamis Oriental province, 60 people were plucked from the ocean off El Salvador city, about six miles (10 kilometers) northwest of Cagayan de Oro. Coast guard boats and other rescuers were scouring the waters off Iligan for survivors or bodies that may have been swept away to sea.

In just 12 hours, Washi dumped more than a month of average rains on Mindanao. Forecaster Leny Ruiz said records show that storms that follow the same path as Washi come only once in about every 12 years.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement that the Obama administration offered its “deepest condolences” for the devastation in the southern Philippines.

“The U.S. government stands ready to assist Philippine authorities as they respond to this tragedy,” the statement said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with all of those affected.”

Associated Press

Disaster warning issued for Bangkok

The Jakarta Post, The Nation, The Asia News Network | Fri, 10/21/2011

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Friday issued the disaster warning for Bangkok, consolidating power for flood control and drainage.

Yingluck invoked the 2007 Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Act to oversee flood control in lieu of declaring the state of emergency.

Under her instruction, the topmost priority for flood control is to speed up the drainage of run-off into the sea via East Bangkok.

The government is to coordinate with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to operate all sluice gates in the capital in order to rein in the water flow.

The armed forces would be in charge of maintaining and defending the royal-initated dykes and levees.

The military would also be responsible for protecting key installations, including the Grand Palace, Siriraj Hospital, the tap water system, Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports.

The Transport Ministry would take charge of ensuring road traffic in the capital.

Relevant agencies would map out plans for evacuation and setting up shelters.

Cambodia Says 150 Killed in Worst Floods in Decade

Jakarta Globe, October 02, 2011

Children are seen in houses affected by flood waters in Phnom Penh.
 Cambodia says flash floods have killed at least 150 people in the
Southeast Asian nation since August. (Reuters Photo/Samrang Pring) 

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Phnom Penh. Cambodia says flash floods have killed at least 150 people in the Southeast Asian nation since August.

The floods are the worst to hit the country since 2000, when 374 people were killed.

Cambodian government disaster agency spokesman Keo Vy said Sunday that flood waters along the Mekong River and other places have damaged 271,000 hectares of rice fields, as well as 904 schools and 361 Buddhist temples.

Hundreds of people have been killed across Southeast Asia, China, Japan and South Asia in the last four months from prolonged monsoon flooding, typhoons and storms.

The government in neighboring Thailand says heavy floods there have also killed 206 people since August.

Associated Press

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Typhoons Leave 55 Dead, Filipinos Trapped on Roofs