Tropical storm triggers landslides in Philippines, 11 dead

Floods and landslides killed 11 people after a fierce tropical storm dumped heavy rain on the Philippines for a second day, officials said Monday.

Tropical Storm Yagi slammed into the main island of Luzon on Monday after brushing past the Bicol region southeast of Manila overnight Sunday, with more heavy rain forecast which the state weather service said could cause flooding and more landslides.

As a precaution, schools and government offices across the capital were shut for the day, ferry services in some areas were suspended and 29 domestic flights were cancelled due to the weather.

Three people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in a landslide Monday in Antipolo, near equally rain-soaked Manila, city information officer Relly Bonifacio told AFP.

He said the bodies of four other people, all drowning victims, were recovered Monday in three other areas of the hilly community, hours after creeks overflowed overnight.

The Bicol city of Naga was also hard-hit, with a man electrocuted as floodwaters rose and a baby girl drowning, rescuers said.

“The floods were above head height in some areas,” Joshua Tuazon of the city’s public safety office told AFP, adding that hundreds of residents had been rescued.

More than 300 people were at evacuation camps Monday, with local officials saying the floodwaters in the city of 210,000 people were slow to ebb.

Two landslides killed two people and damaged five houses in the central city of Cebu on Sunday, the local disaster office there told AFP.

The storm also unleashed strong currents and big waves that wrought chaos in Manila Bay on Monday, hurling a barge and an oil tanker onto the seawall and causing another barge to run adrift, the coast guard said.

A tug and a small passenger ship also collided while both were anchored, causing a fire aboard the second vessel, it said in a statement.

Eighteen people on the passenger ship, all crew members, were later rescued and a coast guard vessel arrived to put out the blaze.

Yagi slammed into the municipality of Casiguran northeast of Manila on Monday afternoon with sustained winds of 85 kilometers (53 miles) an hour, the state weather service said.

The storm was forecast to churn through north Luzon overnight before moving out over the South China Sea early Tuesday.

The weather service also warned of a “minimal to moderate risk” of huge coastal waves threatening seaside communities of northern Luzon.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Philippines or its surrounding waters each year, damaging homes and infrastructure and killing dozens of people.

© 2024 AFP