Landslides and flooding killed at least 42 people as heavy rain from an approaching storm lashed the southern Philippines, a disaster official said Friday, IgbereTV reports
The storm unleashed flash floods carrying uprooted trees, rocks and mud overnight in nine mostly rural towns around Cotabato, a city of 300,000 people on Mindanao island.
Many residents were caught by surprise as floodwaters rose rapidly before dawn, Naguib Sinarimbo, the spokesman and civil defence chief for the regional government, told AFP.
Sinarimbo said 27 died in the town of Datu Odin Sinsuat, including 11 from a mountain village buried in mud, while 10 died in Datu Blah Sinsuat town and five were killed in Upi town.
Teams in rubber boats had rescued residents from rooftops in some towns, Sinarimbo said, adding that 16 people were missing in the region.
In recent years, flash floods with mud and debris from largely deforested mountainsides have been among the deadliest hazards posed by typhoons on Philippine communities.
Mindanao is rarely hit by the 20 or so typhoons that strike the Philippines each year and kill hundreds of people. But those that do tend to be deadlier than those that hit Luzon, the main island.
A long mountain range walls off most of Luzon from the Pacific, where most storms are spawned, helping to absorb the blow, the state weather service said
