Philippine Homes Flattened, Buses Swept Off Roads : Toll Mounts as Typhoon Lashes Manila

Typhoon Ruby, packing 115-m.p.h. winds, slammed into the Philippine capital today after cutting a swath of destruction nationwide that flattened homes, sank ships, blew buses and trucks off roadways and left scores dead.

More than 400 people were missing after a passenger ferry disappeared during the peak of the storm in the Philippine Sea south of Manila just as its captain issued a frantic radio message, “Mayday! Mayday!” However, one report indicated that the ferry may have run aground.

As the storm continued to batter the country’s largest and most populous island of Luzon, official disaster agencies said at least 54 people are believed dead, 61 are missing and 47,000 have been left homeless.

At noon today, officials said the dead included at least 35 of 48 passengers of a bus that was swept off a rural road on the central island of Panay. Elsewhere in the island nation, other victims were crushed by toppled coconut trees, drowned in flash floods and smothered in landslides.

Disaster officials said the death toll is expected to go much higher when rescue operations begin later in the day.

In Manila, air force helicopters--grounded due to the high winds--were standing by to evacuate thousands of residents of the densely populated Marikina district, where rising floodwaters forced entire neighborhoods onto rooftops. Dozens of the district’s residents are feared to have drowned when the Marikina River overflowed its banks early this morning, according to official reports.

All schools and government offices in the capital were closed. Power failures caused blackouts throughout the city. Major roads were blocked by fallen trees and power lines, and all commerce came to a standstill.

Officials said they had conflicting reports on the fate of the 3,000-ton passenger ferry Dona Marilyn, which left Manila for the island of Leyte on Sunday night carrying 431 passengers.

The ship’s captain issued the distress call just after noon Monday, and the ship disappeared soon after. Military reports initially said the ferry had sunk, but a spokesman for the ferry’s owner said today that the Dona Marilyn was spotted by a freighter after it reportedly ran aground on a remote island.

Sulpicio Lines, the owner of the ferry, also owned the Dona Paz, which sank last Dec. 20 after colliding with a tanker. At least 1,600 died in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.

The company said a rescue vessel had been sent to search for the Dona Marilyn and its passengers.