The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Manila

Some 598 people are dead or missing after Typhoon Fengshen roared through the Philippines, the Red Cross and civil defence said Monday, dramatically raising the number unaccounted for.

Landslides, severe flooding and the loss of dozens of fishing boats had left at least 224 dead and 374 missing, they said, mostly in central areas which bore the brunt of the storm.

The figures, up from just six confirmed missing on Sunday while the death toll has been slightly lowered, do not include passengers and crew from a ferry which sank carrying 747 people. So far, only 32 survivors have been found. More than 200 people were still missing in the central island of Negros, while 63,000 people are still in evacuation centers after flash floods and landslides forced them to flee their homes, the civil defence agency said. Flooding had not yet receded in many parts of Bulacan province, just outside the capital of Manila, it added.

Power was fully restored in Manila but had not yet returned in some areas outside the capital where lines had been toppled.

Typhoon Fengshen slammed into the central Philippines late Saturday before changing course and moving north across much of the archipelago.

It left through the northwestern side of the main island of Luzon before dawn Monday, moving northwest at 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) per hour towards southern China, the government weather station said.

As of 10:00 am (0200 GMT) Monday, the typhoon was charted 300 kilometres northwest of the country, packing maximum winds of 110 kilometres near the center.

Reuters report adds: Rescuers held little hope on Monday of finding some 800 people missing from a capsized ferry in the Philippines, as divers prepared to drill into the ship's hull in the hope of finding survivors in air pockets. Coast guard boats searched the area around the ferry, which capsized during a typhoon with gusts up of to 195 kph (120 mph) on Saturday afternoon. By Monday only 33 people had been found alive.

A spokesman for the navy said a team approached the ship on Sunday afternoon to check for possible survivors. "We just approached the hull of the ship, we got near and then banged, knocked in order for us to give a sign if ever there are still people inside," Lieutenant-Colonel Edgard Arevalo said.

"Unfortunately there was no response." Typhoon Fengshen pounded the archipelago at the weekend, washing away houses and roads and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate. Aside from the ferry disaster, a further 155 people were killed, according to the Red Cross.

A U.S. vessel was en route to help with search efforts and was expected to reach the site in around 15 hours, Jesus Dureza, a spokesman from the presidential palace said.

Nine male corpses believed to be passengers from the MV Princess of Stars washed ashore on the central island of Masbate on Monday.

"The bodies were bloated and decomposing. What we did was just to wrap them up and buried them right away," a local mayor told radio.

Photographs showed only the tip of the ship's bow visible above the waves.

In the worst-hit province of Iloilo, damage to agriculture and infrastructure was pegged at 1.7 billion pesos ($38 million).

The Department of Agriculture said in a statement nearly 250,000 ha of farmland was damaged, mostly paddy fields, at a cost of nearly 555 million pesos.

Disaster officials were worried about food supplies for evacuees, crammed into schools, churches and townhalls.

"I don't think they have enough rice to tide them over," Richard Gordon, the chairman of the Philippines' Red Cross, told local television.

The typhoon is currently over the South China Sea and is expected to weaken to a tropical storm as it moves northwards.