Over 100 dead, dozens missing in floods and landslides in Philippines

Manila (dpa) – The death toll from floods and landslides caused by a tropical storm in the Philippines has hit 101, with 66 missing, the national disaster agency said Monday.

Seventy people were injured as tropical storm Nalgae battered the Philippines over the weekend, the agency added.

More than 2 million people were affected, including some 863,000 who were displaced. More than 205,000 were staying evacuation centres, the agency said.

A woman pets her dog at her flooded house a day after Tropical Storm Nalgae brought heavy rains and strong winds to the Philippines. (Credit: Earvin John Perias/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa via Reuters Connect)

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr visited flood-stricken areas in Cavite province on Monday, bringing additional relief supplies.

He stressed the need for pre-emptive evacuation ahead of storms to ensure the safety of residents.

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“Our flood control measures were overwhelmed by the floods,” he said. “The water overflowed from the dikes and inundated towns.”

“That’s why I keep reminding disaster risk reduction agencies that the most important thing when preparing for a storm is that we have pre-emptive evacuation,” he added. “We need to be ahead of the typhoon so that even if the typhoon hits an area, the residents will not be victimized.”

Residents remove flood water inside their house a day after Tropical Storm Nalgae brought heavy rains and strong winds to the Philippines. (Earvin John Perias/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa via Reuters Connect)

Marcos Jr earlier lamented the high death toll from the floods and landslides in Maguindanao province, asking authorities why the residents were not evacuated before the calamity.

Fifty-three of the dead were from the southern province of Maguindanao, where floods and landslides buried more than 100 houses. Twenty-two people were still missing in the province.

Twenty-two drowned or were swept away by floods in the Western Visayas region, while 12 died in the provinces of Cavite, Laguna and Batangas, just south of Manila.

Fourteen other deaths were reported in other eastern and southern provinces battered by the storm.

Twenty-nine people were reported missing in the Eastern Visayas region, the disaster agency said.

Nalgae moved off the Philippines on Monday afternoon, the weather bureau said. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 85 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 105 km/h.

A new tropical storm, Banyan, was moving towards the Philippines, the weather bureau said.

While Banyan was forecast to weaken before reaching the country’s eastern coast, it was expected to bring more rain over southern and eastern provinces.

The Philippine archipelago is hit by an average of 20 tropical cyclones each year.

(Reporting by: Girlie Linao in Manila. Editing by: Friederike Heine)