Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr declared a state of emergency today after Typhoon Kalmaegi left at least 114 people dead and hundreds missing in central provinces in the deadliest natural disaster to hit the country this year.
The deaths were mostly from drowning in flash floods, and 127 people were still missing, many in the hard-hit central province of Cebu. The tropical cyclone blew out of the archipelago yesterday into the South China Sea.
The typhoon’s onslaught affected nearly 2 million people and displaced more than 560,000 villagers, including nearly 450,000 who were evacuated to emergency shelters, the Office of Civil Defence said.
Marcos’s state of national calamity declaration, made during a meeting with disaster-response officials to assess the typhoon’s aftermath, would allow the government to disburse emergency funds faster and prevent food hoarding and overpricing.
