Tropical Storm Trami killed at least 26 people and forced more than 150,000 people to flee their homes in the Philippines, officials said Thursday, as it made landfall on the northeastern coast.
Trami, known locally as severe tropical storm Kristine, dumped heavy to torrential rains on the main island of Luzon, triggering widespread flooding and landslides.
With maximum sustained winds of 95 km/h, the storm was moving westward across the mountainous northern Cordillera region toward the South China Sea, the state weather agency said in its bulletin 11 a.m. weather forecast.
It warned of heavy to intense rain, flooding, landslides and storm surges in some northern provinces.
Most of the storm deaths in recent days were due to drownings and landslides in the central Bicol region, including in the town of Naga, where 14 people were killed Thursday, officials said.
Trami made landfall in the town of Divilacan, in the northeast of Isabela province. The city’s disaster manager, Ezikiel Chavez, said no deaths had been reported.
The government ordered businesses and schools in the storm’s path to close in anticipation of heavy rain and flooding.
More than 163,000 people took shelter in evacuation centers, the civil protection office said, most of them in Bicol as residents fled their homes after floodwaters reached mountain height. roofs of single-storey houses.
The civil aviation regulator said Thursday that at least a dozen flights across the country had been canceled due to the storm.
The central bank canceled foreign exchange and monetary operations for the second day in a row.
The Philippines typically experiences an average of 20 tropical storms per year, often bringing heavy rains, strong winds and deadly landslides.