100 Killed as Storm Rakes Philippines
BACOLOD, Philippines — Tropical Storm Zack killed nearly 100 people, forced 60,000 others to flee their homes and sank two passenger ferries in a devastating sweep across the central Philippines, officials said Sunday.
The storm flattened more than 2,000 houses, most of them built of wood, downed power lines, knocked out telephones in eight provincial cities and triggered floods that ravaged sugar cane plantations in the Visayan Islands. More than 5,000 homes were damaged, relief officials said.
President Fidel V. Ramos declared a state of calamity in the Visayan Islands so government emergency funds could be released.
Relief agencies reported at least 89 dead, but officials said they expected the toll to rise when they hear from interior villages cut off after Zack’s 65-m.p.h. center winds hit 10 provinces in the area Saturday. Most of the deaths were drownings, and some people were crushed to death by falling trees, relief officials said.
The storm headed Sunday toward the South China Sea, where it was expected to intensify, the weather bureau said.
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