
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 23, 1990                   TAG: 9007230124
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Short

VIRGINIA WOMAN SEEKING SISTER LOST IN QUAKE

A Virginia Beach woman plans to leave Tuesday for the Philippines to search for her adopted sister, who has been missing since last week's devastating earthquake.

Maria Aurora Vicera Calayo said family members in the Philippines have been unable to locate Evelyn Vicera. The July 16 earthquake left more than 700 dead and hundreds missing.

Vicera, 35, left her home in Manilla a week ago to see friends on the highly developed Philippine island of Luzon, where the earthquake was centered. The Hyatt Hotel in the city of Baguio collapsed, and 40 guests or employees of the hotel still were unaccounted for Saturday.

Vicera was thought to be staying at a hotel in Baguio, but Calayo said nobody knows whether she was at the Hyatt.

"Maybe they are all dead," Calayo said. "But I am thinking she is alive, and only missing. I feel in my heart she is still alive. Even though she was adopted, we were very close growing up."

Calayo talked about her missing sister Saturday during what was supposed to be a joyous occasion - the announcement in Norfolk of a restaurant chain's plans to build a crab-meat processing plant in the Philippines.

Emmanuel Pelaez, the Philippine ambassador to the United States, attended the luncheon along with about 80 Filipino-Americans.

Pelaez agreed to serve as co-chairman of the Hampton Roads relief effort for the earthquake, coordinated by the Philippine American Foundation in Washington, D.C.

by CNB