The national disaster agency in the Philippines reported on Monday that 98 people had died as a result of floods and landslides brought on by a tropical cyclone, with 63 still unaccounted for.
According to the bureau, tropical storm Nalgae pummelled the Philippines over the weekend, injuring 69 people.
Over 1.9 million individuals were impacted, with 975,000 of them being relocated.
According to the organisation, about 309,000 people were living in evacuation centres.
On Monday, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. travelled to the flood-affected parts of Cavite Province with more relief supplies.
He emphasised the significance of anticipatory evacuation in order to protect locals.
“Our flood control measures were overwhelmed by the floods. That’s why I keep reminding disaster risk reduction agencies that the most important thing when preparing for a storm is that we have pre-emptive evacuations,” he stated. “We need to be ahead of the typhoon so that even if the typhoon hits an area, the residents will not be victimised.”
Mr Marcos lamented the high death toll from the floods and landslides in Maguindanao Province, asking authorities why the residents were not evacuated before the calamity.
Fifty-three of the dead were from the southern province of Maguindanao, where floods and landslides buried more than 100 houses.
According to the report, 22 people are still missing in the province.
Nineteen were killed in the Western Visayas Region, while 12 died in the Provinces of Cavite, Laguna and Batangas, just south of Manila.
Fourteen deaths were reported in other eastern and southern provinces battered by the storm.
The disaster agency said that twenty-nine people were reported missing in the Eastern Visayas Region.
Nalgae was expected to move off the Philippines late Monday, the weather bureau said. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 85km an hour (km/h) and gusts of up to 105 km/h.
The Philippines archipelago was hit by an average of 20 tropical cyclones yearly.
(dpa/NAN)