Filipinos still trapped on roofs; typhoons kill 59

Nalgae left at least three people dead yesterday. Typhoon Nesat killed 56 others and left 28 missing in the same region before blowing out Friday.

Nalgae was whirling over the South China Sea and heading toward southern China late today afternoon,370 kilometers from the Philippines’ northeast coast,with sustained winds of 120 kilometer per hour and gusts of 150 kph,according to the Philippine government weather agency.

China’s National Meteorological Centre urged people in areas expected to be lashed by rainstorms in the next three days,including on southernmost Hainan island and in eastern Taiwan,to stay indoors and cancel large assemblies,China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported today.

Nalgae’s ferocious winds set off a rock slide in the northern mountain province of Bontoc in the Philippines yesterday,causing boulders to roll down a mountainside and smash a passing van,where a passenger was pinned to death and another was injured,police said.

In northern Tarlac province’s Camiling town,a man sought safety with his two young nephews as flooding rose in their village yesterday.

But one of the children was swept away by rampaging waters and drowned,while his uncle and his brother remained missing.

A drunken man drowned in flooding in a nearby village,provincial disaster officer Marvin Guiang said.

Nalgae roared through parts of Luzon that had been saturated by Typhoon Nesat,which trapped thousands on rooftops and sent huge waves that breached a seawall in Manila Bay.

Nesat then pummeled southern China and was downgraded to a tropical storm just before churning into northern Vietnam on Friday,where 20,000 people were evacuated.

Seven towns north of Manila were still flooded today,including Calumpit in rice-growing Bulacan province,where hundreds of residents remained trapped on rooftops in four villages for the fourth day,many desperately waving for help.