Tropical storm batters Philippines

Aljazeera.net: At least 11 people have been killed after a typhoon caused landslides and swamped farmland in the northeast of Philippines. Nine other people were still missing on Sunday after piles of mud and debris swept into a coastal village in Maganelles, burying 12 houses, officials said.

Troops, police and villagers used shovels and their hands to search for missing people feared buried, Bernardo Alejandro, a regional disaster official, told the Associated Press news agency. Nine bodies, including those of two children, have been recovered.

…In nearby Albay province, nearly 45,000 villagers were moved into school shelters from their houses at the foot of the Mayon volcano amid fears of possible mudslides, he said. The storm, with sustained winds of 95kph and gusts of up to 120kph was about 110km off the country's northeastern coast and moving towards the Pacific Ocean, Manny Mendoza, a government weather forecaster, said. About 20 typhoons lash the country each year, mostly after June….