Typhoon Utor departed the central Philippines overnight, leaving five people dead, 20 missing, nearly 90 000 evacuated and two key regional summits in disarray, officials said on Monday.
The mass evacuations were ordered to avoid a repeat of the devastation of Typhoon Durian a week earlier, which triggered huge mudslides in the Bicol region that swamped hundreds of villages, leaving more than 1 000 dead or missing.
Utor was also cited by the government as the main reason it postponed the Association of South-East Asian Nations and East Asia summits in the central island of Cebu in the first half of the week, although other sources said the real reason may have been a terror-attack threat.
Three people, including two children, were killed in the central islands. One incident involved a falling tree and the other involved a capsized boat. In the central resort island of Boracay, two men on boats were found dead after the storm.
Twenty more are missing and feared dead in the central regions, most of them fishermen or boat operators who were at sea when the storm hit, officials said.
Parts of the central islands were still without power, including most of the islands of Samar, Marinduque and Boracay with outages in other towns as well.
At 10am local time on Monday, the typhoon, packing maximum winds of 120kph, was charted at the South China Sea, about 240km north-west of the western Philippine island of Palawan.
President Gloria Arroyo, who is battling various political crises, urged the public to concentrate on alleviating the plight of the communities affected by the recent typhoons.
“We need to push hard together in order to normalise the situation in the stricken areas and we need all hands on deck,” Arroyo spokesperson Ignacio Bunye said as the government sent off a convoy of vehicles bearing relief goods to the areas hit by Durian. — AFP