Girl drowns as tropical storm batters Philippines

Pacific nation hit by Typhoon Yagi killing eleven people and causing chaos across the northern part of the country

Eleven people, including a nine-month-old girl, have died in a severe tropical storm battering the Philippines.
Tropical Storm Yagi – known locally as Enteng – saw heavy rain cause floods and landslides. Across much of the northern part of the country there was travel chaos, with ferries and flights cancelled.
Schools and government offices were closed in the capital region, with thousands preparing to evacuate from flood-prone villages near rivers, and coastlines subjected to winds of 47mph and gusts of up to 56 mph.
The eastern city of Naga was among the hardest hit as the storm reached its coast overnight, leaving two dead, including the baby girl who drowned as flood waters rose, rescuers said.
“The floods were above head height in some areas,” Joshua Tuazon from the city’s public safety office said, adding that hundreds of residents had been rescued.
A landslide hit two hillside villages close to the city of Antipolo, west of the capital Manila, on Monday, killing at least three people, including a pregnant woman, authorities said. Four other villagers drowned in swollen creeks.
On Sunday, two landslides in the central city of Cebu killed two people and destroyed five houses.
Storm warnings have also been raised across Luzon, the country’s most populous region, and sirens sounded along the crowded banks of the Marikina River on the eastern fringes of the capital to warn residents of the risk of rising waters.
In Northern Samar province, the coast guard used rubber boats and rope to evacuate 40 villagers on Sunday in two villages that were engulfed in waist- to chest-high floods.
Storm Yagi may soon move towards southern China, according to the US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre.
The Philippines, which lies in the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, is prone to natural disasters, including earthquakes, and the archipelago is hit by about 20 storms and typhoons every year.
In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones in the world, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing and displaced more than five million in the central Philippines.
In July, more than 30 people died in floods and landslides caused by Typhoon Gaemi.