Philippines typhoon death tools rise to 35, half a million displaced

Death toll in the typhoon that battered the northern Philippines has risen to 35, with nearly half a million people displaced, disaster relief officials said.

Most of the fatalities either drowned in floods that reached up to the roofs in some areas, buried in landslides, or hit by toppled trees and collapsed walls caused by typhoon Koppu.

Koppu has since weakened into a tropical depression and was blowing out of the Philippines since it slammed into the country’s north-eastern coast on Sunday, cutting off electricity and isolating some provinces.

The weather bureau said Koppu was still causing moderate to heavy rains within a 500-kilometre diameter- moving north-east at 6 kilometres per hour (kph) and was not expected to be out of the country until early next week.

The national disaster relief agency reported 26 people dead, while an additional nine fatalities were reported by the regional civil defence office in the northern Philippines.

The agency did not include in its death toll eight people who drowned in a boat capsize in the central province of Iloilo at the height of Koppu’s onslaught on Sunday.

The weather bureau said the choppy seas that caused the boat to sink was indirectly caused by Koppu, which enhanced the South-West monsoon causing strong winds and huge waves in the area.

The National Disaster Relief Agency said Koppu, which flooded rice-growing provinces, caused damage to agriculture and infrastructure worth at least 6.56 billion pesos (142.60 million dollars)