At least 26 people killed as Typhoon Kalmaegi barrels across the Philippines

Typhoon Kalmaegi has left at least 26 people dead in the Philippines (Jacqueline Hernandez/AP)

Typhoon Kalmaegi has left at least 26 people dead in the Philippines, mostly in flooding set off by the storm, which barrelled across the central part of the country on Tuesday, disaster response officials said.

Floodwaters trapped scores of people on their roofs and submerged cars.

A Philippine air force helicopter with five personnel on board crashed in southern Agusan del Sur province while flying to help provide humanitarian assistance to provinces battered by Kalmaegi.

A damaged vehicle seen after flooding caused by Typhoon Kalmaegi (Jacqueline Hernandez/AP)

The Super Huey chopper crashed near Loreto town and efforts were underway to locate the air force personnel aboard, the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command said in a statement.

Military officials did not immediately provide other details about the crash, including the condition of the five air force personnel aboard and what could have caused the crash.

Kalmaegi was last spotted over the coastal waters of Jordan town in the central province of Guimaras with sustained winds of 81mph and gusts of up to 112mph.

It was forecast to blow away into the South China Sea by late Tuesday or early Wednesday after hitting the western province of Palawan.

Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV, deputy administrator of the Office of Civil Defence, said that at least 26 people were reported killed, many in flooding in Cebu province and other central island provinces pummelled by Kalmaegi, the 20th tropical cyclone to batter the Philippine archipelago this year.

Details of those typhoon deaths were still being verified, he said.

At least 26 people have died (Jacqueline Hernandez/AP)

Among the dead was an older villager who drowned in floodwaters in Southern Leyte, where a province-wide power outage was reported after the typhoon made landfall around midnight in one of its eastern towns.

Another resident died after being hit by a fallen tree in central Bohol province, provincial officials said.

Gwendolyn Pang, secretary-general of the Philippine Red Cross, said that an unspecified number of residents were trapped on their roofs by floodwaters in the coastal town of Liloan in Cebu, and added that cars either were submerged in floods or floated in another Cebu community.

Ms Pang told The Associated Press: “We have received so many calls from people asking us to rescue them from roofs and from their houses, but it’s impossible. There is so much debris, you see cars floating, so we have to wait for the flood to subside.”

Cebu province was still recovering from a 6.9 magnitude earthquake on September 30 that left at least 79 people dead and displaced thousands when houses collapsed or were severely damaged.

In Eastern Samar, one of the east-central provinces first lashed by Kalmaegi early Tuesday, fierce winds either ripped off roofs or damaged about 300 mostly rural shanties on the island community of Homonhon, which is part of the town of Guiuan, but there were no reported deaths or injuries, Mayor Annaliza Gonzales Kwan said.

The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons and storms each year. The country is also often hit by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries (Jacqueline Hernandez/AP)

“There was no flooding at all, but just strong wind,” Ms Kwan told the AP. “We’re OK. We’ll make it through. We’ve been through a lot, and bigger than this.”

In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful tropical cyclones on record, slammed ashore in Guiuan. It then raked across the central Philippines, leaving more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattening entire villages and sweeping scores of ships inland.

Haiyan demolished about one million houses and displaced more than four million people in one of the country’s poorest regions.

Before the typhoon’s landfall, officials said that more than 387,000 people had evacuated to safer ground in eastern and central Philippine provinces. Authorities warned of torrential rains, potentially destructive winds and storm surges of up to three meters.

Interisland ferries and fishing boats were prohibited from venturing into increasingly rough seas, stranding more than 3,500 passengers and cargo truck drivers in nearly 100 seaports, the coast guard said.

At least 186 domestic flights were cancelled.

The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons and storms each year. The country is also often hit by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.