Khaleej Times: Three women were killed Saturday in a landslide set off by Super Typhoon Mangkhut, Philippine police said, the first reported deaths in the massive storm. Officers in the city of Baguio recovered the women’s bodies from the soil and rubble after a hillside collapsed from the typhoon’s heavy rains, said police Superintendent Pilita Tacio.
Mangkhut tore through the northern part of Luzon island, where it made landfall in the pre-dawn darkness, ripping off roofs, felling trees and knocking out power.
The area is home to around 10 million people, many of whom live in flimsy wooden shelters.
As the powerful storm left the Southeast Asian archipelago and barrelled towards densely populated Hong Kong and southern China, search teams in the Philippines began surveying the provinces that suffered a direct hit.
“We believe there has been a lot of damage,” said Social Welfare Secretary Virginia Orogo as thousands of evacuees took refuge in emergency shelters.
Mangkhut was packing sustained winds of 170 kilometres (105 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 260 km per hour as it left the Philippines.
An average of 20 typhoons and storms lash the Philippines each year, killing hundreds of people and leaving millions in near-perpetual poverty.
Thousands of people fled their homes in high-risk areas ahead of the storm’s arrival because of major flooding and landslide risks.
In Taiwan, a woman was swept away by high waves caused by the typhoon, the government said.