period covered: 1 January - 30 June 2000
During the first half of the year, efforts were devoted to the relocation of the Regional Delegation to Bangkok which has been successfully achieved. Negotiations on a full status agreement with the Thai authorities have commenced and relations with other organisations promoted. A partnership meeting was held in May 2000 for all National Societies in the region which has resulted in fruitful exchanges of expertise and visits between Societies. There was also substantial progress in the health and capacity building programmes.

The badly decomposed bodies were placed

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine rescue workers called for extra chemicals and protective gear on Wednesday to ward off disease as they plucked more corpses from the ruins of a Manila shantytown buried under tons of garbage.

Two days after the mountain of rubbish collapsed and crushed houses in a squatters colony called the Promised Land, at least 115 bodies had been recovered with about 100 other people missing and feared dead, relief agencies said.

''What we need now are body bags, gallons of Lysol, extra gloves, face masks and bags of lime,'' Lieutenant Fausto

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine officials said on Tuesday more than 100 bodies had been recovered and another 100 people were missing and feared dead after a mountain of garbage crashed down on Manila's Promised Land shantytown.

''It's a recovery operation, not a search and rescue operation,'' Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado told Reuters nearly 40 hours after an avalanche of rain-drenched garbage thundered down on the squatters' colony.

He said local officials at the shantytown had no firm count on how many were still buried under a hectare-wide pile

Situation

The Philippines experienced an accumulation of disasters from the 4 to the 10 July 2000.

In conjunction with yearly southwest monsoon, two tropical depressions "Ditang" and "Edeng" associated with the typhoons Kirogi and Kai-tak dumped heavy rains over the Regions of Ilocos, Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, Western Visaya, the National Capital Region and over Carlatan since 4 July 2000. Heavy

Situation

Tropical Depression Edeng in conjunction with the southwest monsoon has brought heavy rains over the entire area of Luzon and the Visayas in the Philippines during the last few days.

Intermittent heavy rains have caused flooding, landslides and have made roads and bridges impassable.

Casualties

According to a report issued by the Philippine National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) on 6 July 2000, 12 persons

The Disaster