Typhoon's Wrath

The death count was still rising as Supertyphoon “Reming” (international name: Durian) swirled out to the South China Sea yesterday after pounding the Bicol and Southern Tagalog regions with winds gusting up to 265 kph and triggering floods and torrents of mud and volcanic rocks. For three hours, walls of mud roard down from Mayon Volcano, burying houses up to their rooftops, and rocks “as big as cars” tumbled down. When everything was still, hundreds were feared dead. Rescuers recovered more bodies from flooded homes and mud-swamped villages on Saturday, raising the death total from Typhoon Durian (Reming)(to over 300, with up to another 300 people missing. The typhoon blasted ashore with gusts of up to 165 mph, sending walls of muddy volcanic ash and red-hot boulders crashing down the slopes of the Mayon volcano, which erupted last summer.