Philippine Typhoon Survivors Flee False Tsunami Alert

About a thousand traumatized survivors of the Philippines' deadliest typhoon fled their homes in one central province following false rumors of a tsunami, civil defense officials said Sunday.

Officials in the province of Antique were visiting upland villages where people had fled overnight to convince them there was no danger and it was safe to return to their coastal homes, said Broderick Train, the civil defense chief for the province.

"These are people who have been traumatized by their experience with Typhoon (Haiyan). When the false information began spreading yesterday they immediately fled," he told AFP in a telephone interview.

He said the provincial government was trying to convince them to return home as there had been no earthquake to trigger a tsunami.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said it had not recorded any big earthquakes over the weekend and had not issued any tsunami alert.

Train said officials had yet to find out who spread the false alert that triggered evacuations in the small coastal towns of Laua-an, Culasi, Sebaste, Barbaza, Tibiao and Pandan.

"I would say there are about a thousand people who fled their homes overnight," Train said.

Leck Benitez, spokesman for Antique's Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, told AFP it was likely criminals had spread the rumors by mobile telephone text messages.

"When people leave their homes they become targets for break-ins," Benitez added.

Benitez said the towns where evacuations were reported had been hard-hit by Haiyan, which struck the central Philippines on November 8 with winds of up to 315 kilometers (195 miles) an hour.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said the typhoon, along with tsunami-like storm surges that struck the central islands of Samar and Leyte, killed at least 5,632 people, with 1,759 others still missing.

This made Haiyan the deadliest typhoon in Philippine history, and one of the worst natural disasters on record.

Antique province accounted for 13 of those deaths, the council said in its latest tally.

The typhoon and the storm surges wrecked more than 1.1 million homes, and left more than four million people needing emergency assistance.

The Philippine government said Saturday rebuilding areas devastated by Haiyan would take up to five years and cost more than $2 billion.