BATANGAS, Philippines (AP) – A powerful typhoon that spoiled Christmas Day in parts of the Philippines, leaving at least four people dead and destroying homes, roared over a congested region near Manila on Monday with slightly weaker but still-fierce winds, officials said.
Typhoon Nock-Ten cut power to five provinces at the height of Christmas celebrations and displaced tens of thousands of villagers and travelers in Asia’s largest Catholic nation.
A farmer died after being pinned by a fallen tree in Quezon province and three other villagers, including a couple who were swept by a flash flood, died in Albay province, southeast of Manila, after the typhoon made landfall in Casiguran province Sunday night, police said.
Nock-Ten, locally known as Nina, then blew westward across mountainous and island provinces, damaging homes, uprooting trees and knocking down communications.
Although it had weakened slightly, the typhoon still had sustained winds of up to 130 kilometers (80 miles) per hour and gusts of 215 kph (133 mph), government forecasters said, as it blew over the heavily populated provinces of Batangas and Cavite, south of Manila, on Monday morning. It was expected to exit over the South China Sea later in the day.