Typhoon Angela's Death Toll Rises Above 600 In Philippines

MANILA, Philippines - More than 630,000 people filled evacuation camps today as the death toll from a typhoon that battered the Philippines rose above 600.

The provinces on the eastern coast of the main island of Luzon, particularly the Bicol region, bore the brunt of Typhoon Angela's 141-mph winds Thursday and Friday.

Angela, the 14th tropical cyclone to hit the Philippines this year, was the deadliest storm since 1984. Many people were still missing, and officials said the death toll could top 800.

The extent of the destruction was still unclear because many towns in provinces east of Manila remain isolated, said Franklin Castillo, a director of the Office of Civil Defense.

"Relief is very slow because (aid workers) could not penetrate these areas due to flooding and landslides," Castillo said.

He said 636,000 people were housed in more than 1,000 government shelters today and estimated there was at least $77 million in damage to crops, roads and bridges, excluding the more than 96,000 houses destroyed or damaged. The Department of Agriculture said $18 million worth of rice ready for harvest was destroyed in the central Luzon region.

The first foreign relief supplies arrived before dawn on a chartered plane from Belgium. The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders shipped 32 tons of medical and sanitary supplies and shelter materials for the typhoon victims, spokeswoman Anouk Delasortrie said.

More bodies were found in Quezon province, one of the hardest hit by Angela, raising the region's death toll to 262. Of the dead, 170 were found in Calauag, 100 miles east of Manila, which was hit by huge waves and a rampaging river.

Carolina Parafina, a Quezon province official, said the road from the provincial capital of Lucena to Calauag was flooded and blocked by landslides, forcing aid workers to take supplies to another coastal town to load onto boats.

"We cannot put too much on these boats because they are small and the waves are still big," she said.

In Maulawin, a village in the Calauag district, residents held a mass burial today for 36 victims, many placed in makeshift wooden caskets. One family buried a mother and her daughter in a one large coffin. Others wrapped their dead in blankets or plastic.

Angela's death toll far surpassed that of tropical storm Zack, which ravaged the central Philippines the previous week and killed at least 165 people.