At least 41 people are dead and nine others are missing as a powerful tropical storm makes its way across the Philippines' main island of Luzon Wednesday.
Tropical Storm Nock-ten made landfall with intense rains and maximum winds of 95 kilometers an hour. Wind gusts ranged up to 120 kilometers an hour.
Benito Ramos, the head of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, told reporters more than 640,000 people have been affected by Nock-ten, most of them in the coastal province of Albay.
Dozens of domestic flights have been canceled, while schools in Manila were closed as a precaution.
Authorities said search operations were intensified for 19 fishermen who went missing in choppy seas off Masbate province, 405 kilometers south-east of capital Manila.
Five others reported missing from other parts of the country are believed to have been washed away in flash floods unleashed by heavy rain that accompanied Nock-Ten.
After wreaking havoc across much of the east Asian nation, the tropical cyclone exited on Thursday allowing government agencies to ferry food, medicine and clothing to several thousand Filipinos marooned in far-flung areas.
The Philippines government put the damage caused by the storm at 1.11 billion pesos ($25.81 million).
The Weather Bureau, meanwhile, said it was keeping a close watch over a new storm, Muifa, which was currently located 810 kilometers off Phlippines' eastern Samar province. Muifa is expected to bring gale-force winds and is already working up winds of up to 85 kilometers per hour, with gusts of up to 100 kilometers per hour.
Earlier Nock-Ten had triggered floods and landslides in the northern and eastern provinces in addition to devastation caused to agriculture and infrastructure.
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