Philippines Quake Toll Reaches 302 : Hundreds Pulled From Rubble of Hotels, Factories

Rescuers using spotlights and generators worked into the early morning today to free hundreds of victims trapped by a major earthquake that killed at least 302 people, officials said.

Rescue efforts were concentrated on the devastated towns of Cabanatuan and Baguio, where about 750 people were reported trapped in half a dozen toppled hotels and factories.

Television news reports showed the hotels crumbled like accordions, including the luxurious Hyatt Terraces and the Nevada hotels.

“There are cries of children and voices of people in these hotels,” said Rudy Roxas, a rescue coordinator in Baguio told a Manila radio station. “We can’t say how many there are but the rescuers were trying to reach them.”

Officials said the earthquake, which hit at 4:26 p.m. Monday and measured 7.7 in intensity, was centered at Cabanatuan, 60 miles north of Manila. It was the most powerful temblor to strike the Philippines in 14 years.

Aided by U.S.-supplied lights and generators, rescuers battled rain and time to reach those still trapped in the rubble.

U.S. military helicopters airlifted 25 victims, including four Americans, for treatment in a hospital at Clark Air Base, Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Ron Rand said.

U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Nicholas Platt said three officials of the U.S. Agency for International Development trapped at the Nevada Hotel while attending a seminar had been rescued. He said a fourth U.S. aid official died in the hotel but his name was not immediately made public.

The Military Civil Defense said the quake had killed 302 people and injured 672. The dead include 81 in Baguio, 54 in Dagupan City in Pangasinan, 26 in La Union Province, 122 in Nueva Ecija, one in Tarlac and 10 in metropolitan Manila.

The Red Cross said 19,183 people are homeless.

Baguio, 120 miles north of Manila, remains isolated because of landslides and downed communications and power lines. At least 70 aftershocks have been recorded, officials said.

President Corazon Aquino, accompanied by her 18-year-old daughter Kris, flew by helicopter to Cabanatuan City in Nueva Ecija today. She consoled relatives of the victims at a building near the toppled six-story Philippine Christian College, where crews were attempting to rescue about 100 people pinned inside.

Aquino later declared an emergency in five hard-hit towns to allow swift relief and rehabilitation operations.