Without typhoon aid, there will be looting: Philippine guv

Damaged homes after Typhoon Rai lie along a coastal village in Surigao City on Monday. Pic/AP

The governor of a central Philippine province devastated by Typhoon Rai last week pleaded on radio Tuesday for the government to quickly send food and aid, warning that without outside help, army troops and police forces would have to be deployed to prevent looting amid growing hunger.

Governor Arthur Yap of Bohol province said he could no longer secure rice and other food aid after his contingency fund ran out and added many of the 1.2 million people in his island province, which remained without power and cellphone service five days after the typhoon, have become desperate. The most powerful typhoon to hit the Philippine archipelago this year left at least 375 dead and 50 others missing mostly in its central region, including nearly 100 dead in Bohol, according to officials.

President Rodrigo Duterte visited Bohol on the weekend. Yap said the government's social welfare department promised to send 35,000 food packs, an inadequate amount for the province's 375,000 families, but those have not yet arrived. In an interview on DZBB radio, Yap thanked Duterte but said, "If you would not send money for food, you should send soldiers and police, because if not lootings will break out here."

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