Tropical Storm Yagi slammed into the main island of Luzon on Monday after brushing past the Bicol region southeast of Manila overnight Sunday, with more heavy rain forecast which the state weather service said could cause flooding and more landslides.
As a precaution, schools and government offices across the capital were shut for the day, ferry services in some areas were suspended and 29 domestic flights were cancelled due to the weather.
Three people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in a landslide Monday in Antipolo, near equally rain-soaked Manila, city information officer Relly Bonifacio told AFP.
He said the bodies of four other people, all drowning victims, were recovered Monday in three other areas of the hilly community, hours after creeks overflowed overnight.
The Bicol city of Naga was also hard-hit, with a man electrocuted as floodwaters rose and a baby girl drowning, rescuers said.
"The floods were above head height in some areas," Joshua Tuazon of the city's public safety office told AFP, adding that hundreds of residents had been rescued.
More than 300 people were at evacuation camps Monday, with local officials saying the floodwaters in the city of 210,000 people were slow to ebb.
Two landslides killed two people and damaged five houses in the central city of Cebu on Sunday, the local disaster office there told AFP.
The storm also unleashed strong currents and big waves that wrought chaos in Manila Bay on Monday, hurling a barge and an oil tanker onto the seawall and causing another barge to run adrift, the coast guard said.
A tug and a small passenger ship also collided while both were anchored, causing a fire aboard the second vessel, it said in a statement.
Eighteen people on the passenger ship, all crew members, were later rescued and a coast guard vessel arrived to put out the blaze.
Yagi slammed into the municipality of Casiguran northeast of Manila on Monday afternoon with sustained winds of 85 kilometres (53 miles) an hour, the state weather service said.
The storm was forecast to churn through north Luzon overnight before moving out over the South China Sea early Tuesday.
The weather service also warned of a "minimal to moderate risk" of huge coastal waves threatening seaside communities of northern Luzon.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Philippines or its surrounding waters each year, damaging homes and infrastructure and killing dozens of people.
One dead as storms hit Australia's southeast
Melbourne (AFP) Sept 2, 2024 -
One woman has died, schools have been shuttered and tens of thousands of people were without power Monday, as wild storms lashed Australia.
Police said a 63-year-old woman died after a tree fell on a cabin in the country's southeast.
"Destructive" winds of more than 110 kilometres (68 miles) per hour are lashing the region, leaving about 150,000 people without power.
Victorian state premier Jacinta Allan warned power outages could take up to three days to fix.
"There are some areas where the conditions remain too dangerous to make repairs," she said.
Meanwhile, coastal areas have been hit by high tides -- in some cases swallowing up sand dunes.
People have been warned to avoid unnecessary travel, while some schools have closed.
Authorities in New South Wales were concerned the damaging winds would increase fire danger on Monday, with many areas on high alert.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service inspector Ben Shepherd warned Sydney and surrounding areas that they would see the worst of the fire danger on Monday, but conditions would ease in the afternoon.
Parts of Tasmania have been inundated by flooding and destructive winds -- with gusts peaking at 150 kilometres (93.2 miles) per hour over the weekend.
Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Christie Johnson said a series of cold fronts sweeping across Australia's southeast had caused "damaging to destructive winds".
But conditions were set to ease Tuesday, she said.
Johnson warned further cold fronts would impact the country later in the week, but she did not anticipate conditions to be as extreme.
- Australia's exposure -
Australia is highly exposed to extreme weather events, given its remoteness in the Pacific Ocean.
The country recorded its warmest winter last month, with the mercury hitting 41.6 degrees Celsius (106.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in part of its rugged and remote northwest coast.
Official data shows average temperatures for Australia steadily rising, with climate change fuelling more intense bushfires, floods, drought and heatwaves.
Shepard told AFP there was a high risk that the coming summer would see increased fire danger due to the rapid drying of vegetation.
With a few days of hot and windy weather, this vegetation would be primed for fire.
Climate scientists have already predicted that 2024 will be the planet's hottest year on record.
Temperature records have tumbled worldwide in recent decades as human-caused carbon emissions have risen.
Record temperatures have been recorded in the Mediterranean Sea and Norway's Arctic Svalbard archipelago in the past few weeks alone.
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