At least 136 dead, missing as Tropical Storm Trami hits Philippines

Dozens missing after the storm forces more than half a million people to flee their homes amid floods and landslides.

Rescuers in the Philippines are diving into a lake and scouring isolated villages to locate dozens of missing people as the death toll from Tropical Storm Trami hits 100.

The death toll in the province of Batangas, south of Manila, rose to 55 as of Sunday, provincial police chief Jacinto Malinao told the AFP news agency.

Trami, which hit the Philippines on October 24, was among the deadliest storms to hit the Southeast Asian country this year.

At least 36 others remain missing since the tropical storm, which forced more than half a million people to flee their homes, according to the national disaster agency.

Police in the hardest-hit Bicol region in central Philippines also recorded 38 deaths, mostly due to drowning.

“We are still receiving many calls and we are trying to save as many people as we can,” Bicol regional police director Andre Dizon told AFP. “Hopefully, there will be no more deaths.”

Dizon added that “many residents” in the region’s Camarines Sur province are still trapped on roofs and the upper floors of their homes.

Two people were reported dead in separate incidents of electrocution and drowning in Cavite province, police said.

Five more bodies were also recovered in other provinces, bringing the total to 100 based on police and disaster agency sources.

“A higher death toll is possible in the coming days since rescuers can now reach previously isolated places,” Edgar Posadas of the Civil Defence Office was quoted in news reports as saying.

The weather cleared in many areas on Saturday and Sunday, allowing cleanup and search work.

Rescuers evacuate a family from their submerged house brought about by Tropical Storm Trami in Bula town, Camarines Sur province in the Bicol region of central Philippines [Zalrian Sayat/AFP]

The police, coastguards and a marine diving team were searching on Sunday for a family of seven at Taal Lake in Batangas.

Most of the deaths in Batangas have been attributed to rain-induced landslides.

More than 20 bodies were pulled from heaps of mud, boulders and fallen trees, while police said at least another 20 people in the province are still missing.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the archipelago nation or its surrounding waters each year, damaging homes and infrastructure and killing dozens of people.

In September, at least 11 people were killed when Tropical Storm Yagi hit the country.

A recent study showed that storms in the Asia Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies