The death toll from a storm that struck the Philippines shortly after Christmas rose to 68 with the number of fatalities expected to climb even higher, civil defence officials said Monday.
Fifty-seven people died in the mountainous Bicol region, southeast of Manila, while 11 were killed in the central island of Samar, mostly due to landslides and drownings, the officials said.
[...]
Many people failed to take necessary precautions because Usman was not strong enough to be rated as a typhoon under the government’s storm alert system, [Claudio Yucot, Bicol civil defence director] said.
“People were overconfident because they were on [Christmas] vacation mode and there was no tropical cyclone warning,” he told AFP.
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