At least 50 people are dead and as many as 60 are missing in a huge mudslide caused by flash floods in a southern Philippine province.
According to Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region, at least 42 people were swept away by rampaging floods and drowned or were hit by debris-filled mud slides in three towns.
The government's disaster response agency said that eight people died elsewhere in the country because of Tropical Storm Nalgae.
The mudslide that buried dozens of houses in the tribal village of Kusiong was the worst storm impact so far.
The mudslide buried about 60 rural houses in about 12 acres of the community, according to an army lieutenant colonel. He didn't give an estimate of how many people were buried in the mud slide.
Rescuers dug up at least 13 bodies in Kusiong over the weekend.
He said that the community would be the site of the search and rescue work.
It was hit by a lot of rain that washed out houses.
The coastal village, which lies at the foot of a mountain, is accessible by road, allowing more rescuers to be deployed Saturday to deal with one of the worst weather- related disasters to hit the country's south in decades.
According to Sinarimbo, 27 people died in Datu Odin Sinsuat town, 10 in Datu Blah Sinsuat town, and 5 in Upi town.
The death count was recalled by authorities after they discovered some double-counting.
In a mountainous region with marshy plains, a heavy rain can become a catch basin. Some residents of low-lying villages were forced to climb onto their roofs, where they were rescued by army troops, police and volunteers, Sinarimbo said.
The coast guard took pictures of its rescuers wading in high water to save the elderly and children in the area. Sinarimbo's house in Cotabato city was flooded for the first time in a long time.
The rough weather in a large swath of the country caused the coast guard to prohibit sea travel in dangerously rough seas as millions of Filipinos planned to travel over a long weekend for family reunions and visits to relatives' tombs. Thousands of passengers have been stranded because of the canceled flights.
Even though Nalgae was blowing farther north, it was still able to dump rain in the country's south.
The storm was moving northwest with winds of 95 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 160 kilometers per hour, just south of the capital Manila, which had been forecast for a direct hit until the storm turned.
More than 158,000 people were removed from the path of the storm.
The nation is one of the world's most disaster-prone because it is located on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.
That's right.
The report was contributed to by Associated Press journalists.
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