Big waves set off by a storm battered provinces along the Philippines’ western coast overnight, sending more than 5,000 people fleeing, some falsely thinking there was a tsunami, officials said today.

A POPULAR TV host was questioned by the authorities yesterday following a stampede that killed at least 74 people and injured more than 500 others at a suburban Manila stadium where a massive crowd turned up to watch a popular TV game show.

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying British-born astronaut Michael Foale and two others blasted off today for the International Space Station from the Russian space programme’s cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.