Tropical storm triggers landslides in Philippines, 11 dead

AFP | Baijing

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

Tropical Storm Yagi slammed into the main island of Luzon yesterday 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 yesterday 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 yesterday 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 yesterday, 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.