Typhoon Utor departed the central Philippines yesterday leaving five people dead, 20 missing and nearly 90,000 evacuated, officials said yesterday.
The mass evacuations were ordered to avoid a repeat of the devastation of Supertyphoon Durian a week earlier. Durian trig-gered huge mudslides in the Bicol region that swamped hundreds of villages, leaving more than 1,000 dead or missing.
Three people, including two children, were killed in the central islands. One incident involved a falling tree and the other involved a capsized boat. In Boracay, two men on boats were found dead after the storm.
Twenty more are missing and feared dead in the central regions, most of them fishermen or boat operators who were at sea when the storm hit, officials said.
Parts of the central islands were still without power including most of the islands of Samar, Marinduque and Boracay with outages in other towns as well.
At 10am yesterday, the typhoon, packing maximum winds of 120kph, was charted at the South China Sea, some 240km northwest of Palawan.
President Gloria Arroyo urged the public to concentrate on alleviating the plight of the communities affected by the recent typhoons.
"We need to push hard together in order to normalize the situation in the stricken areas and we need all hands on deck," Arroyo spokesman Ignacio Bunye said as the government sent off a convoy of vehicles bearing relief goods to the areas hit by Durian.
Meanwhile, Vietnam was readying for the possible arrival of Utor as the toll of those dead or missing from Durian crept up to 94, officials said yesterday.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has ordered ministries and authorities to prepare for mass evacuations and to keep ships in port and tell those at sea to seek shelter.
Forecasters said it was too early to tell whether the typhoon would make landfall in Vietnam, lose strength or hit elsewhere.
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