Torrential monsoon rains have hit the north-west Philippines, triggering landslides and killing 20 people in areas already weakened by a powerful typhoon, and raising the death toll to 47 from storms across Asia.
Philippine officials said soldiers and villagers were also searching for at least seven people missing in mountainside villages hit by the landslides on Monday in the province of Zambales.
In China, where typhoon Usagi struck after passing by the Philippines, officials said the storm killed 25 people in the southern province of Guangdong, 13 of them in the city of Shanwei where it struck the coast late on Sunday.
Two people drowned when a passenger boat capsized in north-east Aurora Province in the Philippines.
Jeffrey Khonghun, mayor of Subic, Zambales, said 15 bodies were dug out in two landslide-hit villages in his town. Five people also died in landslides in two other towns in Zambales, according to army officials and police.
Rescuers used their hands, pots and shovels to dig through the muck that buried a cluster of houses, while relatives of two other missing residents waited in the rain in the village of Wawandue.
"This is the first after a long time that we were hit by this kind of deluge," Khonghun told Manila's DZBB radio network. He had to stop the interview when another body was pulled out from the mud near him.
Typhoon Usagi enhanced the torrential monsoon rains that drenched the main northern Philippine region of Luzon over the weekend. The powerful typhoon blew away late on Saturday and a new tropical storm off southern Japan was continuing to intensify the downpours in Luzon, government forecaster Samuel Duran said.
Many low-lying areas of the Philippine capital, Manila, and outlying regions were swamped on Monday, prompting authorities to close schools and offices.
In Hong Kong flight schedules were returning to normal on Monday after major disruptions caused by Usagi, which was the season's strongest storm. At its peak it forced about 250 flight cancellations in Hong Kong, before weakening to a tropical depression over the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.
Train and airline services around Guangdong had returned to normal after the storm, China's state broadcaster CCTV said.
China's national weather centre said the storm would continue to weaken as it moves north-west.
Monday 23 September 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/23/landslides-kill-20-philippines-typhoon-usagi
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