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MANILA: About 10,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the northeast Philippines as heavy rains across the country killed at least eight, authorities said on Sunday (December 20).
The storm, which has flooded villages and destroyed dozens of homes in recent days, is the latest to hit the disaster-prone archipelago.
Flooding was waist-deep in 14 cities in the Cagayan Valley in the northeast of the main island of Luzon, which suffered the worst flooding in decades last month, said regional civil defense official Francis Joseph Reyes.
That forced almost 10,000 people to seek refuge in emergency centers.
The rain, which was intensified by the northeast monsoon, filled the Magat dam near its critical level and the release of water threatens to exacerbate the flooding, Reyes said.
Authorities said at least six people drowned in two provinces on the main southern island of Mindanao, which has also been hit by torrential rains in recent days.
Two elderly women were also killed in a landslide caused by rain on Saturday in the central province of Leyte.
The Philippines is affected by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year, which often wipe out crops, homes and infrastructure in already impoverished areas.
At least 148 people have died in a succession of typhoons in recent months that destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes.
