Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has declared a state of emergency following Typhoon Kalmaegi, which resulted in at least 241 fatalities and missing
persons, marking the country's deadliest disaster of the year. Kalmaegi, which has struck the nation's central provinces, left at least 114 people dead, mostly from drowning in flash floods, and 127 missing, many in the hard-hit central province of Cebu, before the tropical cyclone blew out of the archipelago on Wednesday into the South China Sea. Marcos's emergency declaration, made during a meeting with disaster-response officials to assess the typhoon's aftermath, would allow the government to disburse emergency funds faster and prevent food hoarding and overpricing. The typhoon's onslaught, which affected nearly 2 million people, displaced more than 560,000 villagers, including nearly 450,000 who were evacuated to emergency shelters.
Two powerful quakes strike off southern Philippines
This comes after southern Philippines battled two powerful offshore earthquakes that struck hours apart last month, with the first 7.4 magnitude temblor killing at least seven people, setting off landslides and prompting evacuations of coastal areas nearby because of a brief tsunami scare.
The second one had a preliminary 6.8 magnitude and also sparked a local tsunami warning by authorities. It was caused by movement in the same fault line, the Philippine Trench, at a depth of 37 kilometers (23 miles) off Manay town in Davao Oriental province, Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology chief Teresito Bacolcol said.
(With AP inputs)
