The new York Times – Emergency workers in the Philippines recovered 43 bodies from the muddied wreckage of a gold miners’ bunkhouse after Typhoon Mangkhut set off a landslide, burying the remote northern town of Itogon in a river of debris and potentially doubling the country’s death toll, officials said on Monday.
Mangkhut, a super typhoon that slammed into the northern Philippine province of Luzon on Saturday, continued a path of destruction across southern China on Sunday and into Monday.
Officials feared the death toll could surpass 100 in the Philippines, and at least four people were killed in China as of Monday, according to the state news media.
Dozens buried in landslide
The whir of choppers and the buzz of chain saws were all that was heard on Monday near the mining town of Itogon as workers looking for bodies dug through the mud using shovels and their bare hands — the ground too wet for heavy machinery.
Francis Tolentino, a senior adviser to President Rodrigo Duterte, estimated that nationwide 5.7 million people had been affected by the storm, which hit the country at the height of its powers, with wind speeds topping 150 miles per hour.
The authorities said the prospectors, some of whom are believed to be children, were working illegally at the mine site, which was shut down in the 1990s amid concerns of environmental degradation.
After Benguet Corp., the company that previously operated the mine, halted operations, thousands of individuals flocked to the site, known as Antamok, to work the tunnels started by the company.
“Before Ompong came, I asked them to leave,” Victorio Palangdan, the mayor of Itogon, said of the miners, using Typhoon Mangkhut’s local name. He said the workers at the camp told him that they had permission from Benguet Corp. to work the abandoned mine, a claim the company denied.
By some estimates, as many as 400,000 small-scale miners operate throughout the Philippines, digging in areas where such activity is outlawed and using banned toxic substances, including mercury, to process their finds.
Mr. Duterte inspected part of the disaster area on Sunday, and met with top officials in Tuguegarao City for a televised briefing on the damage and the recovery effort.
“I share the grief of those who lost their loved ones,” the president said.
At least 4 dead in China
As Mangkhut churned its way through mainland China’s Guangdong Province, one of the country’s most populous, it killed four people, according to the state news media.
Workers in Guangdong on Monday cleared away debris, broken glass and fallen trees from a storm that many feared could have been worse. There were reports of scattered damage in the city of Guangzhou, where falling trees killed three of the victims, and in Dongguan, where a man was crushed by a toppled billboard.
In Shenzhen, which abuts Hong Kong, photographs posted on social media showed downed trees blocking roads, but also people making their way to work as if it were a normal Monday morning. In one dramatic scene on Sunday evening, a section of a skyscraper fell behind a journalist recording a broadcast for television.
Shops along Shenzhen’s beaches on the Dapeng Peninsula, famed for its surfing, suffered substantial damage from the storm’s winds and ocean surge.
Farther southeast on the coast, the storm the shattered windows of a shopping mall near People’s Park in Yangjiang, while a sign made of large Chinese characters crashed to a sidewalk. Airports reopened and rail service resumed, but trains were delayed across the province and in some cases canceled.
Parts of Yangchun, a city near Yangjiang, were flooded on Monday as the tail of the storm continued to dump rain across the province. By Monday afternoon the storm had reached Yunnan Province, where officials warned of mudslides
Hong Kong returns to normal, but slowly
The air travel disruptions that rippled across Asia from the storm continued into Monday. Some flights arrived at and departed Hong Kong’s airport Monday morning, but many others were canceled or delayed.
Rose Marie Nuevo, 32, a domestic worker from the Philippines, said her 11:30 a.m. flight Monday to Manila was canceled and rescheduled for Tuesday. She plans to spend the day waiting in the airport rather than returning to her residence in Hong Kong.
“If I’m tired I can sit and if I’m hungry I can go to McDonald’s,” she said. “It’s safe here. If I go home I don’t know if there’s flying debris or what.”
But for many Hong Kong residents, the city’s transportation networks were not ready for their return to work. Roads throughout the city were still blocked by glass and fallen trees, and major bus companies cut most of their routes.
Commuters turned to the rail system, where huge crowds of commuters waited for trains. Compounding the problem was that some light rail service was disrupted by an overhead electric line that was damaged by falling trees, officials said.
Historic gas lamps damaged by typhoon
