Alamada: Health officials are testing for cholera and other diseases after eight people died and hundreds more fell ill in a remote area in the Philippines, possibly from contaminated water, authorities said.

Most of the victims are children from the southern town of Alamada who suffered from diarrhoea, Lyndon Lee Suy, head of the government agency’s infectious disease unit.

“It looks like it came from their water. Their water comes from a stream,” he said, adding that results from the tests – which are trying to determine if the deaths were caused by cholera or other diseases – should be available by the weekend.

Lee Suy said eight residents of the farming town had died and 496 others fell ill, including 144 who remained in its small hospital for further treatment.

The town of about 57,000 people is on the island of Mindanao, about 897 kilometres (557 miles) south of the capital Manila.