Japan donates P27 M to Leyte

TOKYO (AP) — Japan will donate $535,715 (roughly P27 million) to the Philippines to build shelters for people who lost their homes in a killer landslide that struck Southern Leyte last month, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

The aid comes on top of previous donations of tents and blankets and the dispatch of several disaster recovery teams.

"Those who have lost their houses and properties in the landslide disaster area are now forced to stay in a seriously harmful situation without clear prospects for the future," the Foreign Ministry said in a release.

Japanese Ambassador Ryuichiro Yamazaki and Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo exchanged note verbales at the Department of Foreign Affairs offices in Pasay City yesterday to have the grant formally handed over to the Philippine government, witnessed by Social Welfare and Development Secretary Experanza Cabral.

The grant was in addition to the P11 million worth of emergency relief items that the government of Japan had turned over to the Department of Welfare and Social Services last Feb. 11.

A statement from the Japanese embassy in Manila said Tokyo is considering more forms of assistance to victims of the Southern Leyte landslides on the recommendation of its needs assessment team.

On Thursday, Philippine authorities officially ended the search for bodies in the village of Guinsaugon in Saint Bernard town in Southern Leyte. The farming village was entombed by a wall of mud, boulders and trees from the collapse of a nearby mountainside on Feb. 17.

About 140 bodies have been retrieved, and 972 people are still missing and feared dead. More than 3,000 were left homeless.

Guinsaugon lies on unstable ground straddling the Philippine Fault, which zigzags from the north to the south of the country.