Deadly Typhoon Utor strikes Philippines

Terra Daily via AFP: The strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year flattened houses, caused flash floods and triggered landslides in remote towns on Monday, killing at least one person.

With gusts of 200 kilometres (124 miles) an hour, authorities said they feared many more people may have
died as Typhoon Utor swept across coastal and mountainous regions of the northern Philippines.

"It looks like the death and damage toll is going to go up... with wind like this, you can expect a lot of damage," Francis Rodriguez, a senior officer with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, told AFP.

Rodriguez said authorities would likely not receive reports from isolated villages that were in Utor's direct path until Tuesday. Hundreds of people die each year in the Philippines from the roughly 20 typhoons that strike the country.

The wind from Utor, which made landfall before dawn on Monday, was the strongest recorded in the Philippines this year, while the typhoon also brought intense rain…