Ketsana leaves more than 300 dead across SE Asia

By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer

MANILA, Philippines – One of the most destructive storms in years extended its deadly path across Southeast Asia, blowing down wooden villages in Cambodia and crushing Vietnamese houses under mudslides after submerging much of the Philippine capital.

The death toll Wednesday climbed past 300 and was rising.

"We're used to storms that sweep away one or two houses. But I've never seen a storm this strong," said Nam Tum, governor of Cambodia's Kampong Thom province.

The immediate threat was easing as Typhoon Ketsana was downgraded to a tropical depression as it crossed Wednesday into a fourth nation, Laos. But its powerful winds and pummeling rain left a snaking trail of destruction.

Landslides triggered by the storm slammed into houses in central Vietnam on Tuesday, burying at least seven people including five members of the same family, the government said. They were among 52 people killed in the country, some by falling trees, officials said.

The storm destroyed or damaged nearly 170,000 homes and flattened crops across six central Vietnamese provinces, officials said. More than 350,000 people were evacuated from the typhoon's path, posing a logistical headache to shelter and feed them.

"The scale of the devastation is stretching all of us," said Minnie Portales, a World Vision aid agency official in the Philippines. The agency said it was scrambling to assess the needs of victims in four countries, including the possibility that Laos would have damage.

Parts of hard-hit Quang Nam province were cut off by floodwaters and fallen trees on roads, said local official Nguyen Hoai Phuong. World Vision said Quang Tri province was also unreachable.

In neighboring Cambodia, at least 11 people were killed and 29 injured Tuesday as the storm toppled dozens of rickety houses in Kampong Thom province, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of the capital, Phnom Penh.

Five members of the same family died when the storm toppled their home as they ate dinner, said Neth Sophana of the Red Cross. Others were swept away by floodwaters.

Neth Sophana said about 90 homes were destroyed.

Authorities were searching for more victims and rushing food, medical supplies and plastic sheeting for temporary tents to storm-hit areas.

Light rain was falling over some parts of the disaster zone Wednesday, and most rivers had peaked in the morning and were starting to slowly recede, Vietnam's National Weather Forecast Center said.

But the cleanup task was enormous.

In the Philippines, Ketsana on Saturday triggered the worst flooding in 40 years across a swath of the island nation's north and submerged riverside districts of the sprawling capital of 12 million people.

Officials said 2.3 million people had their homes swamped, and 400,000 were seeking help in relief centers hastily set up in schools and other public buildings — even the presidential palace. The Philippines death toll stood at 246, with 42 people missing.

Frustration boiled over at some sites.

Flood victims rushed at an army helicopter delivering boxes of clothes to a relief center in Rodriguez town in hard-hit Rizal province just east of the capital, an Associated Press photographer at the scene said. No one was apparently injured.

Elsewhere in Rizal, police said they were investigating reports that flood victims mobbed two convoys carrying relief supplies and pelted the trucks with stones.

"Apparently victims who were hoping to receive the relief goods blocked the convoy," police official Leopoldo Bataoil told The AP, adding that the report was unconfirmed.

At relief centers, women and children clutching bags of belongings lined up for bottled water, boiled eggs and packets of instant noodles for a fourth day. Men waded through thick, gooey sludge back to their homes to clean up the mud — sometimes two feet (half a meter) deep — using shovels and brooms.

Manila's main downtown business and tourist district was largely unscathed.

Another tropical storm was headed toward the southern Philippines on Wednesday but was still 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) off the coast. If it stays on its current path, it could bring winds more powerful than Ketsana's and driving rain back to the Manila area Saturday, said Nathaniel Cruz of the government's weather agency.

The government has declared a "state of calamity" in Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces and estimated the damage at $100 million. It concedes its ability to cope with the disaster is stretched to the limit and has appealed for foreign aid, and accepted pledges from the United States, Australia, Japan and other nations.