At least 24 people have died in flooding and landslides in the central and southern Philippines following heavy rains from Tropical Storm Megi.
More than 13,000 people fled to emergency shelters as the storm flooded homes, fields, and cut roads and power lines, the National Natural Disasters Agency said on Monday.
The province of Leyte, in the center of the archipelago, was the hardest hit, with landslides that killed 21 people in four villages, natural disaster management officer Rhyse Austero told AFP. in Bay Bay City.
Three other people died on Mindanao, the main island in the south of the country, the National Agency announced earlier.
Photos posted on Facebook and authenticated by AFP show several houses in the village of Bunga, one of the most affected in Leyte province, covered in mud up to the roofs.
“Yesterday the rain was so heavy, it didn’t stop for more than 24 hours,” resident Hannah Cala Vitangcol told AFP on Monday.
This 26-year-old teacher fled with her family to a hotel, after waking up to find that the houses near hers had been covered by a torrent of mud.
“I cried because I knew people who were killed, and I was scared because there are mountains behind our house,” she added.
According to Mark Unlu-cay, councilor of Baybay, a port in the west of the island of Leyte, the death toll could rise, as he said other villages were buried.
Philippine coast guards and police also evacuated people from their homes in the flooded town of Abuyog, still in Leyte province.
– First major storm in 2022 –
Storm Megi, known in the Philippines by its local name Agaton, is the first major storm to hit the country this year, which is frequently hit by natural disasters.
Causing strong waves at sea, it forced dozens of ports to suspend their activities and nearly 6,000 people were stranded before the Easter holidays, one of the main travel periods of the year.
The country had just reopened its doors in February to vaccinated tourists from most foreign countries, after lifting most of the national restrictions linked to Covid-19.
Four months ago, Super Typhoon Rai devastated entire swathes of the archipelago, killing more than 400 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.
As the planet is affected by global warming, typhoons of this type are becoming more powerful, scientists warn.
The Philippines, ranked among the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, is hit by an average of 20 storms each year.
In 2013 Typhoon Haiyan, the most powerful to have ever made landfall, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing.