A powerful typhoon that pummeled the northeastern Philippines killed 17 people in floods and landslides, but the overall damage was less than expected, officials said yesterday.
The victims included seven people who died when a landslide swept a house over the edge of a ravine in Itogon town in Benguet Province, 210km north of Manila, said Senior Superintendent Loreto Espinili, the provincial police commander.
The bodies of the victims, which included two children, were found at the foot of the 200m ravine.
Espinili said five people were also killed in a landslide in nearby La Trinidad town, also in Benguet.
The National Disaster Coordinating Council said one man died when he fell from his roof and a two-year-old drowned while crossing a swollen spillway in the eastern province of Camarines Sur.
One man died from hypothermia and another drowned in floods in the northern province of Isabela, while one was swept away by strong river currents in Pangasinan province, police said.
Typhoon Parma slammed into the Philippines on Saturday with maximum winds of 175kph and gusts of up to 210kph, forcing nearly 170,000 people to flee their homes amid warnings of devastating effects.
It toppled trees, ripped roofs off houses, and downed electricity and communication lines in the affected provinces in the northern Philippines.
Forceful winds and floods damaged crops, while landslides blocked roads in the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, Aurora and Benguet, as well as in the eastern region of Bicol.
“The damages were minimal considering the strength of the storm,” said Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Torres, a spokesman for the National Disaster Coordinating Council. “We can attribute this to the preemptive measures we undertook to mitigate the impact.”
Parma spared Manila and surrounding provinces that were devastated by the worst flooding in over 40 years caused by Typhoon Ketsana, which killed 288 people with 42 still missing.
More than 3 million people were still recovering from the floods, including more than 370,000 staying in evacuation centers.
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