Another typhoon hits the Philippines

Another typhoon has hit the Philippines, the fourth one in a month. The latest named Typhoon Mirinae has killed five people and swept away hundreds of homes. This typhoon strikes just when people who were displaced earlier were considering returning home.

From Relief Web, this Deutsche Presse Agentur story gives us the details of the latest storm.

Hundreds of houses in shore areas were swept away by huge waves when Typhoon Mirinae hit land late Friday in Quezon province, 120 kilometres south-east of Manila.

An 8-year-old girl and a 78-year-old woman drowned before dawn on Saturday when a river suddenly rose in Pagsanjan town in Laguna province, 55 kilometres south of Manila, according to town Mayor Emilio Ramon Ejercito III.

He blamed the sudden rise of the river on a release by a nearby dam of a hydroelectric power plant.

Two more people were killed in Daet town in Camarines Norte province, while one drowned in Pililia town in Rizal province.

Four people were missing, including a man and his 3-year-old son whose car fell into a river after a bridge collapsed in Batangas City.

Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Torres, spokesman of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), said several roads in the eastern provinces of Laguna, Rizal, Quezon and Camarines Norte were impassable due to landslides.

He added that several bridges collapsed or were swept away by floodwaters.

Torres said Mirinae caused widespread power outages in the eastern provinces of Camarines Norte, Quezon, Rizal, Cavite, Batangas and the suburbs of Manila.