At least 52 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of others forced to flee their homes in the central Philippines, the authorities said, after Typhoon Kalmaegi brought destructive winds and devastating flooding on Tuesday to a region still reeling from a deadly earthquake.
Many of the victims had drowned, while some died from fallen trees, electrocution and landslide, said Junie Castillo, a spokesman for the national Office of Civil Defense. More than 380,000 people had been displaced, many evacuating before Kalmaegi made landfall, he said.
The extent of casualties and damage caused by the storm, known locally as Tino, was slowly emerging on Wednesday. More than a dozen people were still missing and at least 10 had been injured, the authorities said. By Wednesday morning, flooding in some areas had receded.
But videos posted on social media on Tuesday and verified by The New York Times showed streets on the island of Cebu overwhelmed by floodwaters and people trying to get to dry ground. One clip captured a man in a red safety vest heading down a street on paddle board to check on others.
“We were marooned inside our house and rushed to the second floor,” Monique Haeyn Rosario, 28, who lives with her toddler, her parents and other family near the Butuanon River in Cebu City, said in a telephone interview. She said the river’s level started rising quickly around 5 a.m. Tuesday. Floodwaters outside her house were as high as 10 feet, she estimated.
“The authorities have reached us and are rushing aid, but I am appealing for food, and, most importantly, water and dry clothes and medicines” she said.
The national government said it had distributed aid, including food, worth 6 million Philippine pesos, or about $100,000. The military and Coast Guard were helping to clear debris and evacuate residents from flooded areas.
One Air Force helicopter en route to assess the damage crashed in southern Agusan del Sur Province on Tuesday afternoon, the military said. The crew of five died in the accident.
In Cebu Province, officials said that more than 100,000 people were sheltering in evacuation centers.
Mr. Castillo said that 22 deaths were recorded in Cebu. Fatalities were also reported in Bohol Province, the Negros Island Region as well as the Eastern and Western Visayas.
Kalmaegi hit the Philippines just over a month after a magnitude 6.9 earthquake killed dozens in northern Cebu.
It made landfall on eight times as it cut a deadly swathe across the central Philippines, an archipelago nation that lies in the Pacific typhoon belt.
After wrecking havoc on the Visayas islands, it moved west and was in the South China Sea on Wednesday morning, headed toward Vietnam.
Even as Kalmaegi weakened over land on Tuesday, the authorities said another weather system was forming east of Mindanao, in the southern Philippines.
Jiawei Wang is a video journalist for The New York Times based in Seoul.
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