Storm exits Philippines after killing at least 38

People return home Wednesday in Quezon, north of Manila, Philippines, as water from Typhoon Rammasun covers the streets. The storm, while weaker than expected, caused dozens of deaths and widespread power disruptions.
People return home Wednesday in Quezon, north of Manila, Philippines, as water from Typhoon Rammasun covers the streets. The storm, while weaker than expected, caused dozens of deaths and widespread power disruptions.

MANILA, Philippines -- A typhoon that barreled through the northern Philippines left at least 38 people dead, knocked out power in entire provinces and forced more than half a million people to flee its lethal wind and rains, officials said today.

Most businesses, malls and banks in the Philippine capital reopened a day after Typhoon Rammasun left the country, but schools remained closed todayas workers cleaned up storm debris, which littered roads around Manila, slowing traffic.

The eye of Typhoon Rammasun made a late shift away from Manila, but its peak winds of 93 mph and gusts up to 115 mph toppled trees and electric posts and ripped off roofs across the capital of 12 million people that largely shut down ahead of the deluge.

Although Rammasun packed far less power than Typhoon Haiyan, memories of last year's storm devastation prompted many villagers to rapidly move to safety at the prodding of authorities.

More than 500,000 of over 1 million people affected by the typhoon fled to emergency shelters in about a dozen provinces and the Philippine capital, said Alexander Pama, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council.

Pama said at least 38 people died in the wake of the typhoon and 10 were reported missing.

Officials said most of the people who died were hit by falling trees and electrical posts. A fire volunteer died when he was hit by a block of concrete while hauling down a Philippine flag in suburban Pasig city, said Francis Tolentino, chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority.

Electricity has been restored to most of the capital's 12 million people, but large swaths of provinces southeast of Manila, which bore the brunt of the typhoon, still had no power, Pama said.

In a shantytown at the edge of Manila Bay, hundreds of people fled when strong winds started to tear tin roofs off their shanties. Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada said his city staged anti-disaster drills two weeks ago precisely to prevent extensive deaths during a catastrophe, and he was relieved that only a few residents sustained injuries Wednesday.

At Manila's international airport, the left wing of a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 was damaged after strong gusts pushed it against a bridge passageway, manager Angel Honrado said. No one was injured.

Pama said the typhoon destroyed more than 7,000 houses and damaged more than 19,000. About $1 million in infrastructure was destroyed and at least $14 million in crops and livestock were lost, he said.

Polangui Mayor Cherilie Mella Sampal said 10,000 of the 80,000 residents in her Albay town, about 210 miles southeast of Manila, abandoned their homes before the typhoon, many of them worried after witnessing Haiyan's deadly aftermath in the central Philippines last November.

At least 6,300 people died and more than 1,000 disappeared because of Haiyan, one of the most ferocious typhoons to hit land.

"We're used to and prepared for calamities," Sampal said. "But when people heard that the eye of the typhoon will hit the province, they feared we may end up like the victims" of Haiyan.

Although Rammasun slightly weakened as it scythed across the country's main northern region, it may strengthen over the South China Sea before slamming into either Vietnam or southern China, according to government forecasters.

Rammasun, the Thai term for god of thunder, is the seventh storm to batter the Philippines this year. About 20 typhoons and storms lash the archipelago on the western edge of the Pacific each year.

Information for this article was contributed by Teresa Cerojano of The Associated Press.

A Section on 07/17/2014

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