Typhoon Hagupit knocked out power in coastal provinces, mowed down trees and sent more than 650,000 people into shelters as it roared through the Philippines, but lessons from last year’s disaster seem to have avoided mass deaths.

A typhoon has blasted through the northern Philippines, leaving at least 38 people dead and forcing more than half a million to flee its wind and rain.

A Philippine air force helicopter has rescued a woman who drifted for about 30 hours in choppy, shark-infested seas far from where her ferry sank a day before, leaving nine people dead and nearly 1,000 survivors.

Philippine troops suffered one of their worst losses in an offensive against al Qaida-linked militants on a southern island that left at least 23 soldiers and 20 guerrillas dead, officials said today.