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Four people have been confirmed dead after being hit by falling
trees and another 27 people are feared to have died as a result
of Typhoon Rai, the country's disaster agency said in a
statement.
Rai was the 15th and among the deadliest of the tropical storms
to strike the Philippine archipelago this year, driving more
than 300,000 people to shelter in evacuation centres. Many areas
were still without power on Saturday.
The hard-hit central provinces of Cebu and Bohol declared a
state of calamity to access disaster funds and imposed a price
freeze on basic goods.
At one point a category 5 storm, the highest classification, Rai
brought 195 km (121 miles) per hour winds before making landfall
on Thursday.
Typhoon Rai, locally named as Odette, swept out of the
Philippines on Saturday afternoon after making nine destructive
landfalls, the first of which was in the holiday island of
Siargao.
"Odette was really strong. Almost 95% of houses in Dinagat
Island are without a roof," Nilo Demerey, vice governor of
Surigao del Norte province, told a local radio station.
Evacuation centres housed in churches, schools and gyms were
also badly hit, Demerey added.
Some 309,000 people remain in evacuation centres, data from the
disaster agency showed.
Many areas are still without power, and corn and rice
plantations have been flooded, Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor
told the same radio station.
Every year, about 20 tropical storms hit the Philippines,
causing floods and landslides.
The Southeast Asian nation, made up of more than 7,600 islands,
is also prone to frequent earthquakes.
(Reporting by Neil Jerome MoralesEditing by Mark Heinrich)
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