In Philippines, at least 66 people have been killed while hundreds of thousands fled their homes as one of the strongest typhoons this year ripped through the country.
The typhoon Kalmaegi, locally named Tino, has weakened since making landfall early yesterday, but has continued to bring winds of more than 130 km/h.
The country’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council estimated that forty-nine of the reported fatalities were from Cebu, most of them due to fallen debris, landslides and flooding on account of rains. Typhoon Kalmaegi is forecast to move on to Vietnam, which is already seeing record-breaking rainfall.
Cebu accounted for 49 of the deaths, the civil defence agency’s deputy administrator, Rafaelito Alejandro, said in an interview with local radio outlet DZMM on Wednesday, as he confirmed the overall death toll of 66.
“It was the major cities that got hit [with floods], highly urbanised areas,” Alejandro said, adding that 26 people are still missing.
“All the floods have subsided. Our challenge now is the clearing of this debris that is blocking our roads,” he said.
In the 24 hours before Typhoon Kalmaegi, locally named Tino, made landfall shortly before midnight on Monday, the area around the provincial capital, Cebu City, was deluged with 183mm (7 inches) of rainfall, well in excess of its 131mm monthly average (5.2 inches), state weather specialist Charmagne Varilla told the AFP news agency.
In Agusan del Sur, on the island of Mindanao, a Huey helicopter went down while conducting a humanitarian disaster response mission, the military said. Six bodies of the crew were recovered, and an investigation is under way, the military said.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, provincial Governor Pamela Baricuatro called the situation in Cebu “unprecedented”.