AFP

Rescuers hampered by mud and rain on Tuesday used their bare hands and shovels to search for survivors of landslides that smashed into villages in the central Philippines, as the death toll from tropical storm Megi rose to 42. 

Tens of thousands fled their homes as the storm pummelled the disaster-prone region in recent days, dumping heavy rain that flooded houses, severed roads and knocked out power.

At least 36 people died and 27 were missing after landslides slammed into multiple villages around Baybay City in Leyte province — the hardest hit by the storm — local authorities said. Just over 100 people were injured. 

Three people were also killed in the central province of Negros Oriental and three on the main southern island of Mindanao, according to the national disaster agency.

The death toll is expected to rise.

Rescue efforts continued under the cover of nightfall Tuesday in Leyte province’s Pilar village, after an avalanche of mud and earth pushed most of the houses of about 400 residents into the sea.

“The initial estimate is that 80 percent of the houses were washed out,” Reinz Corbeza, a civil defence official of Abuyog municipality — which includes Pilar — told AFP.

He added that about 50 people had survived or been rescued by boat after roads to Pilar were cut off by landslides.

Most of the confirmed deaths in Leyte were in the mountainous village of Mailhi, near Baybay City, where 14 bodies were found after a “mudflash” buried homes, Army Captain Kaharudin Cadil told AFP.

“It’s supposed to be the dry season but maybe climate change has upended that,” said Marissa Miguel Cano, public information officer for Baybay City.

Cano said the hilly region of corn, rice and coconut farms was prone to landslides, but they were usually small and not fatal. 

– ‘Mudflash’ burying homes –

Drone footage showed a wide stretch of mud that had swept down a hill of coconut trees and engulfed Bunga, another community devastated by the storm.

At least seven people had been killed and 21 villagers were missing in Bunga, which was reduced to a few rooftops poking through the mud. 

Apple Sheena Bayno was forced to flee after her house in Baybay City flooded. She told AFP her family was still recovering from a super typhoon in December. 

“We’re still fixing our house and yet it’s being hit again,” she said.

Rescue efforts were also focused on the nearby village of Kantagnos, which an official said had been hit by two landslides.

Kantagnos resident Daniel Racaza, 26, said he was asleep when a wave of mud and water swept over the riverside community.

He managed to escape with his boyfriend and 16 relatives, but an aunt was caught in the torrent. 

“I only managed to save my cellphone and we have nothing to go back to,” Racaza told AFP by telephone from a high school where they are sheltering.

Some other residents also fled in time or were pulled out of the mud alive, but four villagers have been confirmed dead and many are still feared trapped.

A Philippine Coast Guard video on Facebook showed six rescuers carrying a mud-caked woman on a stretcher, while other victims were piggybacked to safety.

“We’re looking for many people, there are 210 households there,” Baybay City Mayor Jose Carlos Cari told local broadcaster DZMM Teleradyo.  

– First major storm of 2022 –

The military has joined coast guard, police and fire protection personnel in the search and rescue efforts, which have been hampered by bad weather 

National disaster agency spokesman Mark Timbal said landslides around Baybay City had reached settlements “outside the danger zone”, catching many residents by surprise. 

Megi is the first major storm to hit the country this year.  

Whipping up seas, it forced dozens of ports to suspend operations and stranded more than 9,000 people at the start of Holy Week, one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

The storm comes four months after super typhoon Rai devastated swathes of the archipelago nation, killing more than 400 and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

Scientists have long warned typhoons are strengthening more rapidly as the world becomes warmer due to climate change.

The Philippines — ranked among the most vulnerable nations to its impacts — is hit by an average of 20 storms every year.

A new entrant in the space tourism market promises customers views of the Earth’s curvature from the comfort of a luxury cabin, lifted to the upper atmosphere with a giant balloon.

Space Perspective on Tuesday revealed illustrations of its swish cabins, which it hopes to start launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida from late 2024. More than 600 tickets have so far been sold, at $125,000 each.

With five-feet (1.5 meter) high windows, deep seats, dark, purple tones and subdued lighting, the atmosphere contrasts with the white and sanitized capsules of its competitors.

Wifi connectivity and a drinks bar round out the “Space Lounge” inside the company’s Neptune capsule.

Whether it really constitutes spaceflight is a matter of debate. 

The balloon reaches an altitude of 20 miles (30 kilometers), much lower than rivals Virgin Galactic, which goes just over 50 miles high, or Blue Origin, which breaches the Karman Line, 62 miles above sea level, the internationally-recognized space border.

SpaceX Crew Dragons fly even deeper into space.

But 20 miles is still far higher than commercial planes, which ascend around six miles high.

“We are above 99 percent of Earth’s atmosphere,” co-founder Jayne Poynter told AFP, meaning passengers will really see the inky black of space.

There’s no special training required. The balloon climbs at a serene 12 miles per hour (19 kilometers per hour), and the company pitches itself as a greener, zero-emissions alternative to rocket fuels.

They intend to get the hydrogen for the balloon from renewable sources, rather than extracting it from fossil fuels.

The price for the two-hour-up, two-hours-gliding, and two-hour-down voyage, which ends with an ocean splashdown, is significantly less than Virgin Galactic tickets that cost $450,000 for a ride on a spaceplane.

Blue Origin doesn’t disclose its prices but they are thought to be far more, while four entrepreneurs who flew to the International Space Station on a SpaceX ship paid a reported $55 million each to the company Axiom Space for the privilege.

“We wanted to find a way that really changed the way people think about spaceflight that makes it much more approachable and accessible,” said Poynter.

One thing the passengers won’t experience is feelings of weightlessness.

With Virgin’s spaceplane and Blue Origin’s rocket, passengers can unbuckle and float when the rocket engines are cut but the ship keeps coasting upwards for a few minutes, before gravity pulls it back down.

Passengers on SpaceX spaceships and those on the ISS likewise experience apparent weightlessness because the vessels are orbiting the Earth.

Space Perspective plans 25 flights in its first year, with all seats now booked.

A dust storm blanketed Iraq again on Tuesday, sending people to hospital with breathing difficulties and leading airports to suspend flights.

It follows a similar storm that blew over the country late last week and left dozens hospitalised with respiratory problems.

The latest weather event cast an orange hue over the capital Baghdad, where it severely restricted visibility and coated buildings and cars in dust. 

Pedestrians wore disposable masks to avoid inhaling the particles, AFP journalists said. 

“People have been hospitalised with breathing difficulties, but most cases are minor,” health ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr told AFP. 

Dozens of flights were suspended in Baghdad and the Shiite holy city of Najaf during the morning, before flights resumed in the afternoon when conditions improved, airport sources said.

While sand and dust storms are not uncommon during the Iraqi spring, they are expected to become even more frequent “due to drought, desertification and declining rainfall”, said the director of Iraq’s meteorological office, Amer al-Jabri. 

Iraq is particularly vulnerable to climate change, with record low rainfall and high temperatures in recent years.

Experts have said these factors threaten social and economic disaster in the war-scarred country.

In November, the World Bank warned that Iraq could suffer a 20 percent drop in water resources by 2050 due to climate change.

Rescuers hampered by mud and rain on Tuesday used their bare hands and shovels to search for survivors of landslides that smashed into villages in the central Philippines, as the death toll from tropical storm Megi rose to 42. 

Tens of thousands of people fled their homes as the storm pummelled the disaster-prone region in recent days, flooding houses, severing roads and knocking out power.

At least 36 people died and 26 were missing after landslides slammed into multiple villages around Baybay City in Leyte province — the hardest hit by the storm — local authorities said. Just over 100 people were injured. 

Three people were also killed in the central province of Negros Oriental and three on the main southern island of Mindanao, according to the national disaster agency.

Most of the deaths in Leyte were in the mountainous village of Mailhi where 14 bodies were found after a “mudflash” buried homes, Army Captain Kaharudin Cadil told AFP.

“We recovered most of the bodies embedded in the mud,” said Cadil, spokesman for the 802nd Infantry Brigade.

Drone footage showed a wide stretch of mud that had swept down a hill of coconut trees and engulfed Bunga, another community devastated by the storm.

At least seven people had been killed and 20 villagers were missing in Bunga, which was reduced to a few rooftops poking through the mud. 

“It’s supposed to be the dry season but maybe climate change has upended that,” said Marissa Miguel Cano, public information officer for Baybay City, where 10 villages have been affected by landslides.

Cano said the hilly region of corn, rice and coconut farms was prone to landslides, but they were usually small and not fatal. 

Apple Sheena Bayno was forced to flee after her house in Baybay City flooded. She said her family was still recovering from a super typhoon in December. 

“We’re still fixing our house and yet it’s being hit again so I was getting anxious,” she told AFP.

– ‘Nothing to go back to’ –

Rescue efforts were also focused on the nearby village of Kantagnos, which an official said had been hit by two landslides.

Kantagnos resident Daniel Racaza, 26, said he was asleep when an avalanche of mud and water swept over the riverside community.

He managed to escape with his boyfriend and 16 relatives, but an aunt was caught in the torrent. 

“I only managed to save my cellphone and we have nothing to go back to,” Racaza told AFP by telephone from a high school where they are sheltering.

Some other residents also fled in time or were pulled out of the mud alive, but four villagers have been confirmed dead and many are still feared trapped.

A Philippine Coast Guard video on Facebook showed six rescuers carrying a mud-caked woman on a stretcher, while other victims were piggybacked to safety.

“We’re looking for many people, there are 210 households there,” Baybay City Mayor Jose Carlos Cari told local broadcaster DZMM Teleradyo.  

– First major storm of 2022 –

The military has joined coast guard, police and fire protection personnel in the search and rescue efforts, which have been hampered by bad weather 

By late afternoon Tuesday, it was suspended due to losing light.

A state of calamity was declared in Baybay City, freeing up funds for relief efforts and giving local officials power to control prices.

National disaster agency spokesman Mark Timbal said landslides around Baybay City had reached settlements “outside the danger zone”, catching many residents by surprise. 

Tropical storm Megi — known in the Philippines by its local name Agaton — is the first major storm to hit the country this year.  

Whipping up seas, it forced dozens of ports to suspend operations and stranded more than 9,000 people at the start of Holy Week, one of the busiest travel periods of the year in the mostly Catholic country.

The storm comes four months after super typhoon Rai devastated swathes of the archipelago nation, killing more than 400 and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

Scientists have long warned typhoons are strengthening more rapidly as the world becomes warmer due to climate change.

The Philippines — ranked among the most vulnerable nations to its impacts — is hit by an average of 20 storms every year.

Rescuers hampered by mud and rain on Tuesday used their bare hands and shovels to search for survivors of landslides that smashed into villages in the central Philippines, as the death toll from tropical storm Megi rose to 42. 

More than 17,000 people fled their homes as the storm pummelled the disaster-prone region in recent days, flooding houses, severing roads and knocking out power.

At least 36 people died and 26 were missing after landslides slammed into multiple villages around Baybay City in Leyte province — the hardest hit by the storm — local authorities said. Just over 100 people were injured. 

Three people were also killed in the central province of Negros Oriental and three on the main southern island of Mindanao, according to the national disaster agency.

Most of the deaths in Leyte were in the mountainous village of Mailhi where 14 bodies were found, Army Captain Kaharudin Cadil told AFP.

“It was a mudflash that buried houses. We recovered most of the bodies embedded in the mud,” said Cadil, spokesman for the 802nd Infantry Brigade.

Drone footage showed a wide stretch of mud that had swept down a hill of coconut trees and engulfed Bunga, another community devastated by the storm.

At least seven people had been killed and 20 villagers were missing in Bunga, which was reduced to a few rooftops poking through the mud. 

“It’s supposed to be the dry season but maybe climate change has upended that,” said Marissa Miguel Cano, public information officer for Baybay City, where 10 villages have been affected by landslides.

Cano said the hilly region of corn, rice and coconut farms was prone to landslides, but they were usually small and not fatal. 

Apple Sheena Bayno was forced to flee after her house in Baybay City flooded. She said her family was still recovering from a super typhoon in December. 

“We’re still fixing our house and yet it’s being hit again so I was getting anxious,” she told AFP.

Rescue efforts were also focused on the nearby village of Kantagnos, which an official said had been hit by two landslides. 

“There was a small landslide and some people were able to run to safety, and then a big one followed which covered the entire village,” Baybay City Mayor Jose Carlos Cari told local broadcaster DZMM Teleradyo. 

Some residents managed to escape or were pulled out of the mud alive, but many are still feared trapped.

A Philippine Coast Guard video on Facebook showed six rescuers carrying a mud-caked woman on a stretcher. 

Other victims have been piggybacked to safety.  

Four people have been confirmed dead in Kantagnos, but it is not clear how many are still missing. 

“We’re looking for many people, there are 210 households there,” said the Baybay City mayor. 

– Direct hit on homes –

The military has joined coast guard, police and fire protection personnel in the search and rescue efforts. 

But bad weather has hampered the response. The search was suspended late in the afternoon as it was “too dangerous” to continue in the dark, Cano said.

National disaster agency spokesman Mark Timbal said landslides around Baybay City had reached settlements “outside the danger zone”, catching many residents by surprise. 

“There were people in their homes that were hit directly by the landslide,” Timbal told AFP.

Tropical storm Megi — known in the Philippines by its local name Agaton — is the first major storm to hit the country this year.  

Whipping up seas, it forced dozens of ports to suspend operations and stranded more than 9,000 people at the start of Holy Week, one of the busiest travel periods of the year in the mostly Catholic country.

The storm comes four months after super typhoon Rai devastated swathes of the archipelago nation, killing more than 400 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

Scientists have long warned typhoons are strengthening more rapidly as the world becomes warmer due to climate change.

The Philippines — ranked among the most vulnerable nations to its impacts — is hit by an average of 20 storms every year.