Typhoon Koppu leads 11 dead

At least 11 people are dead after a typhoon in the Philippines forced more than 65,000 villagers from their homes.

Army, police, and civilian volunteers rushed to rescue hundreds of villagers who had been trapped in their flooded homes and on rooftops in the northern Philippine province of Aurora, which was battered by the slow-moving Typhoon Koppu.

The typhoon blew ashore with fierce wind and heavy rains early on Sunday, leaving nine provinces without electricity.

The typhoon weakened once on land, and by yesterday afternoon, Koppu had become a a tropical storm over Ilocos Norte province, reaching winds of about 105km/h and gusts of up to 135km/h.

Several of the affected provinces, led by Nueva Ecija, were inundated by flash floods that swelled rivers and cascaded down mountains, trapping villagers in their homes.

“There were people who got trapped by the flood on their roofs, some were rescued already,” said vice-mayor Henry Velarde of Nueva Ecija’s Jaen town, adding that about 80% of 27 villages in his farming town of more than 45,000 people were inundated by floods.