At least 76 people have been killed in central and northern Philippines after Tropical Storm Trami battered the country, triggering landslides and flooding that trapped residents on their roofs and displaced nearly 320,000.
As the storm leaves the country on Friday with a trail of destruction, state forecasters are raising the rare possibility that it could make a U-turn next week as it is pushed back by high-pressure winds developing in the South China Sea.
A Philippine provincial police chief said on Friday that 47 people were killed mainly in landslides set off by Trami in Batangas province south of the capital, Manila.
Seventeen other villagers remained missing in Batangas, Colonel Jacinto Malinao Jr told ABS-CBN News from the lakeside town of Talisay, where several of the victims were buried in a deep mound of mud, boulders and trees.
Although Trami did not strengthen into a typhoon, it dumped unusually heavy rains in some regions, including some that saw one to two months’ worth of rainfall in just 24 hours, inundating communities with flash floods.
More than 2.6 million people were affected by the deluge, with nearly 320,000 fleeing to evacuation centres or relatives’ homes, disaster mitigation officials told the AP.
As of Friday, 7,510 passengers remain stuck in ports and 36 flights were cancelled.
In the Bicol region in central Philippines, 29 people were reported killed in floodwaters and landslides, according to the Philippine National Police. At least 11 of the victims died by drowning.
A reported nine other people were injured and four remain missing.
In the foothills of the Mayon Volcano in Albay province, mud and other debris cascaded towards nearby towns as the storm hit, engulfing houses and cars in black mudflows.
The storm was last tracked on Friday afternoon blowing 410km (255 miles) west of the northwestern Philippines with sustained winds of up to 95km/h (59 mph) and gusts of up to 115km/h (78 mph). It was moving northwestward towards Vietnam.
Each year, about 20 storms and typhoons batter the Philippines, a Southeast Asian archipelago which lies between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea.
In September, at least 11 people were killed when Tropical Storm Yagi hit the country.
