Typhoon Kalmaegi tears through the Philippines, killing two

A fast-moving typhoon barreled across the central Philippines on Monday after slamming ashore overnight from the Pacific, leaving at least two people dead, setting off flash floods that trapped residents on roofs and submerged cars in two villages, and displacing tens of thousands of people, officials said.

Typhoon Kalmaegi was blowing over the city of Bacolod in central Negros Occidental province before noon with sustained winds of up to 140 kilometres (87 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 195 kph (121 mph) after making landfall around midnight in the town of Silago in the eastern province of Southern Leyte.

Gwendolyn Pang, secretary-general of the Philippine Red Cross, said an unspecified number of residents were trapped on their roofs by floodwaters in the coastal town of Liloan in central Cebu province.

In the city of Mandaue, also in Cebu, floodwaters were “up to the level of heads of people,” she said, adding that several cars either were submerged in floods or floated in another Cebu community.

“We have received so many calls from people asking us to rescue them from roofs and from their houses, but it’s impossible,” Pang told The Associated Press.

"There are so many debris, you see cars floating, so we have to wait for the flood to subside."

Typhoon Kalmaegi

Kalmaegi, the 20th tropical cyclone to batter the Philippines this year, was moving westward at 25 kph (16 mph) and was forecast to start shifting away from the western section of the archipelago into the South China Sea later on Tuesday or early on Wednesday, forecasters said.

Ahead of the typhoon’s landfall, disaster-response officials said more than 150,000 people had evacuated to safer ground in eastern Philippine provinces.

Authorities warned of torrential rains, potentially destructive winds and storm surges of up to 3 meters (nearly 10 feet).

The typhoon, which has a broad wind band spanning about 600 kilometres (373 miles), was expected to batter central island provinces, including Cebu, which is still recovering from a 6.9-magnitude earthquake on September 30 that left at least 79 people dead and displaced thousands when houses collapsed or were severely damaged.

On central Negros island, villagers were warned that heavy rains could cause volcanic mudflows on Mount Kanlaon, one of the country’s 24 most active volcanoes which has been emitting plumes of ash and steam in recent months, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

Interisland ferries and fishing boats were prohibited from venturing into increasingly rough seas, stranding more than 3,500 passengers and cargo truck drivers in nearly 100 seaports, the coast guard said. At least 186 domestic flights were cancelled.

The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons and storms each year. Earthquakes often hit it and have more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.