Around 400,000 people have been evacuated, Bernardo Alejandro, a civil defence official, said at a Friday press briefing.
“We are clearing many big trees and toppled electric posts because many roads are impassable,” Frandell Anthony Abellera, a rescuer in Bicol’s Masbate City, told AFP by phone.
“The rain was strong, but the wind was stronger.”
Videos shared on social media and verified by AFP showed people using boats or trudging through waist-deep water to navigate flooded streets further south in the central Philippines’ Visayas islands.
PUBLIC ANGER
The Philippines is hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year, putting millions of people in disaster-prone areas in a state of constant poverty.
Scientists warn that storms are becoming more powerful as the world warms due to the effects of human-driven climate change.
Authorities warned Thursday of a “high risk of life-threatening storm surge” of up to 3m with the coming storm.
Thousands also remain displaced in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Ragasa, which passed over the country’s far northern end and killed at least nine people earlier in the week.
The storms come as public anger seethes over a scandal involving bogus flood-control projects believed to have cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
