At least 76 killed as Tropical Storm Trami batters the Philippines
Al Jazeera
Nearly 320,000 people forced to leave their homes due to flooding and landslides, while thousands are stranded at air and seaports.
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.
