More than 300 dead as monster typhoon batters the Philippines

Manila, Philippines — At least 375 people have been killed following the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, with 56 people still missing, several central towns and provinces experiencing downed communications and power outages and requesting food and water, officials said.

Before it blew out into the South China Sea on Friday, Typhoon Rai had sustained winds of 121 mph and gusts of 168 mph.

According to the national police, more than 500 people were injured, while 375 people were killed and 56 were still missing. Due to downed communications, power outages, and clogged roads, the death toll was expected to rise, although large-scale clean-up and repair efforts were underway following improved weather.

Those who died were hit by falling trees or walls, drowned in floods or buried by landslides. Police in Negros Occidental province said a 57-year-old man was found deceased hanging from a tree branch and a woman was blown away by the wind and died.

Dinagat Islands Governor Arlene Bag-ao, whose island province of more than 130,000 was one of the first to be hit, said Rai's power was worse than Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the central Philippines in November 2013 but did not strike Dinagat.

"It was like being in a washing machine before, but this time it was like a huge monster that smashed everything, grabbed trees and tin roofs, and then flung them everywhere," Bag-ao told The Associated Press. For six hours, the wind whipped north to south, east to west, then back again. Tin roof sheets were blown away then thrown back."

Bag-ao said at least 14 villagers died, and more than 100 others were injured by flying tin roofs, debris, and glass shards and treated in makeshift surgery rooms in damaged hospitals in Dinagat. It is believed many more would have died if thousands of residents had not been evacuated from high-risk villages as the typhoon approached.

Like several other typhoon-hit provinces, Bag-ao and other provincial officials traveled to nearby regions that had cellphone signals to seek aid and coordinate recovery efforts with the federal government. Dinagat was still without power and communications, and many residents needed construction materials, food, and water.

There were more than 700,000 people afflicted by the typhoon in central island provinces, including more than 400,000 who were taken to emergency shelters. Thousands of residents were rescued from flooded villages, including in Loboc town in Bohol province, where residents were trapped on roofs and trees to escape rising floodwaters.

29 Americans, British, Canadians, Swiss, Russians, Chinese and other tourists who were stranded on Siargao Island were ferried to mainland Philippines by coast guard ships, officials said.

At least 227 cities and towns were without electricity or cellphone service, officials said, adding that three regional airports were also damaged.

Bag-ao and other officials were concerned that their provinces may run out of fuel due to the use of temporary generators, including those for refrigerated warehouses that had large coronavirus vaccine stocks. Officials delivered vaccine shipments to many provinces in preparation for an intensified immunization campaign, which was postponed last week due to the typhoon.

The pope addressed the typhoon that has destroyed homes in the Philippines at the Vatican on Sunday.

A typhoon or storm batters the Philippines about 20 times a year, which lies between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. The archipelago also lies along the seismically active Pacific "Ring of Fire" region, making it one of the world's most disaster-prone nations.