Search and rescue operations following a typhoon that killed nearly 600 people in the southern Philippines have been hampered in part because many residents of this ravaged farming community are too stunned to assist recovery efforts, an official said Saturday. With another nearly 600 people still missing after Typhoon Bopha struck on Tuesday, soldiers, police and volunteers from outside New Bataan have formed the bulk of the teams searching for bodies or signs of life under tons of fallen trees and boulders that were swept down from steep hills surrounding the town, said municipal spokesman Marlon Esperanza. "We are having a hard time finding guides," he told The Associated Press. "Entire families were killed and the survivors are still in shock. They appear dazed. They can't move." He said the rocks, mud, tree trunks and other rubble that litter the town have destroyed landmarks, making it doubly difficult to search places where houses once stood.
