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All Luzon a 'Calamity Area/ Pampanga Flood 12.7 Ft. DeepMANILA (AP) — President Ferdinand Marcos declared the entire island of Luzon a calamity area Monday and ordered the armed forces to speed up rescue efforts as flooding spread through central Luzon, the Philippines* rice basin.In a nationally televised announcement from Malacanang Palace, the president said flood waters had risen to 12.7 feet in L u z o n * s central Pampanga Province and most of Nueva Ec-ija Province was under water.Marcos also ordered a ‘‘socialized and controlled’* pricing of prime commodities, including nails, candles and canned goods,in the calamity area. He warned violators of the price control law will be “arrested and detained.**The Red Cross said 16,776 families, or 83,969 persons, have evacuated their homes as intermittent rains and strong winds continued to batter most of Luzon.The president said, “We may have lost about 6,000 hectares of rice that was about to be harvested in Nueva Ecija Province alone.** He also reported six bridges on the national highway in central Luzon have been knocked down by flood waters.There was no immediate official estimate of the typhoondamage to crops, property and public works. And it was not known how the storm would affect the nation's rice supply.The government had announced there was going to be a rice surplus of 1.8 million tons.The Red Cross said at least 19 towns in Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and Tarlac, major central Luzon provinces, were under water. Marcos announced the Pamapanga River running through part of the region was expected to overflow its banks later in the day.The Red Cross has counted 34 persons dead of drowning, elee-trocution or other causes directly connected with the storm. The government’s National Disaster Coordinating Center, also counting casualties from plane crashes and road accidents, announced a total of 47 dead since last Wednesday.There were no immediate reports of fresh casualties.The Red Cross said at least 100,606 persons would be affected by central Luzon flooding, matching the total of persons affected since last Wednesday in the metropolitan Manila area by typhoon Olga, which lingered over Luzon Island.Marcos said he was lifting the 1 a.m.-4 a.m. martial law curfew for the second night in metropolitan Manila but expected floods in the city would recede sufficiently to permit government and private business offices to reopen Tuesday.Most have been closed since Thursday, when the heaviest floods in Manila in 30 years caught tens of thousands of commuters on the streets or stranded in their offices.The Coast Guard said a U.S. Navy destroyer off Mindoro Island, 100 miles south of Manila, reported 18 members of the crew of a grounded Panamanian freighter, Seng Hong, had scrambled ashore.The Coast Guard said it had no report about rescue efforts. Eleven of the crew members are Filipinos and seven are Chinese.
Newspaper Details
Pacific Stars and Stripes
Tokyo, Tôkyô, JP
Wed, May 26, 1976
Page 19
Full Page
Clipped by
John D.
USA 13 Oct 2021
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