RESCUERS raced Saturday to reach people still stranded in areas cut off by flooding from Tropical Storm Kristine (international name: Trami), which has displaced nearly half a million people and killed at least 87, including 43 from Batangas province.

Provincial officials said 18 of those deaths came from the village of Sampaloc in Talisay town, who were reported to have perished in a landslide Friday night. Batangas provincial police office director Col. Jack Malinao confirmed the retrieval of the 18 victims from the site of the landslide, including 12 children.

Malinao said the death toll could rise further as they were still looking for missing people who were buried in the landslide.

The incident occurred due to days of heavy rains brought by Kristine, which began affecting the province on Tuesday, October 22.

Batangas Public Information Officer Jenny Aguilera said Gov. Hermilando Mandanas has already extended financial assistance to their respective families.

Aguilera said their wakes are in Talisay Covered Court.

Reports of 25 more fatalities were still being verified, said Tricia Peralta, an emergency operations coordinator from the Batangas Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office.

Initial reports indicate they were residents of Lipa City and Rosario.

In Batangas province, a total of 5,000 families or 17,700 individuals are housed in 266 evacuation centers, while an additional 1,402 families have sought refuge outside official shelters.

The Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office reported that 133 houses had been destroyed and 567 were partially damaged.

Vice Gov. Mark Leviste placed the entire province under a state of calamity, following recommendations of the provincial risk reduction and management council.

On Friday, three groups of medical teams from the Provincial Health Office brought their mobile clinics to assess the state of evacuation centers in Lemery, Talisay and Calatagan.

Batangas was among the hardest hit by Kristine, especially when flood waters entered a hospital in Lemery.

In the hard-hit Bicol Region, residents trapped on the roofs and upper floors of their homes were still awaiting desperately needed assistance, officials said.

"The floods have yet to subside. Calls asking for help are still pouring here," regional police director Andre Dizon said.

"We need to rescue them as soon as possible because starvation can be a problem. We're hearing reports that children are already getting sick."

In the region's Camarines Sur province, food and drinking water were in increasingly short supply as some areas remained completely submerged and difficult to access, he added.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. visited the area Saturday to inspect the damage before meeting with provincial officials.

Kristine's death toll, meanwhile, moved higher, with Bicol and Batangas province south of Manila accounting for the majority of fatalities.

Police have recorded 31 deaths in Bicol, most due to drowning.

The number of confirmed dead in Batangas stood at 51, provincial police chief Jacinto Malinao said Saturday, with at least 22 people missing.

Five more deaths have been confirmed in other provinces, bringing the total to 87, according to a tally based on official police and disaster agency sources.

In Batangas, two hours south of the capital, rescuers were using backhoes and shovels to dig through mud as high as 3 meters in a desperate search for the missing in areas hit by landslides.

Reporters who visited the province on Friday saw roads blocked by felled trees, vehicles half-submerged in mud and homes severely damaged by flash flooding.

"We are desperate to find people in safe condition. Deep inside, I am hoping that many of those reported missing are not under the mud and boulders but simply went somewhere without telling others," Malinao, the police chief, said.

The National Disaster Agency reported Saturday that about 495,000 people have been displaced by the flooding, which has submerged hundreds of villages in swathes of the northern Philippines.

Of the 93 road sections nationwide disrupted by Kristine, the Department of Public Works and Highways said it has reopened 68 sections, while 25 remain impassable due to flooding, landslides, rockfalls, and collapsed bridges.

In the Cordillera Region, four sections were closed due to soil collapse, fallen trees, rockslides, landslides, and mudflow.

In Cagayan Valley, two sections were closed due to flooding.

In Calabarzon, five sections were impassable due to road and bridge collapses, mudslides and flooding, while seven had limited access.

Kristine, the 11th storm to hit the country this year, left a devastating path of destruction from Luzon to Mindanao, affecting more than 4 million people.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said the fatality count was likely to rise as reports from regional disaster offices are validated.

The storm's fury inflicted considerable damage on infrastructure, with nearly 8,500 houses and 98 public buildings affected, at an estimated cost of P203.83 million. The agricultural sector sustained losses amounting to P87.53 million as flooding and landslides ravaged fields and livestock across multiple provinces.

In response to the devastation, local governments have declared a state of calamity in 83 cities and municipalities.

Efforts to deliver relief supplies to affected communities have been hampered by blocked or flooded highways, making certain regions hard to access. Key areas in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon), which connect to the Bicol Region, have had to deal with road closures due to mudslides, fallen trees and debris that litter critical routes.

The Philippine Red Cross dispatched a second humanitarian caravan to areas affected by Kristine, including a 10-wheeler relief truck and two 10,000-liter water tankers. Also included in the relief truck were two water treatment units, a service vehicle, and communication systems, including three Starlink units and 10 satellite phones.

PRC Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Gordon said there were more than 68,000 families or over 300,000 individuals affected by Kristine, which he said was an "alarming" figure.

Four Southeast Asian nations — Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia — said they were sending assistance to the Philippines to support its ongoing recovery efforts. At the Saturday News Forum in Quezon City, Office of Civil Defense administrator Undersecretary Ariel Nepomuceno said Singapore would send a C-130 transport aircraft to assist in the delivery of relief to affected regions.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the archipelago nation or its surrounding waters each year, damaging homes and infrastructure and killing dozens of people.

A recent study showed that storms in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.

WITH ARIC JOHN SY CUA, RED MENDOZA, PHILIPPINE NEWS AGENCY

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