CAGAYAN DE ORO (Philippines), Nov 7: Tropical storm Lingling killed at least 66 people and left another 110 missing as it cut a swathe of destruction across the central and southern Philippines on Wednesday.

The heaviest hit area was the southern island of Camiguin, where at least 54 people died after tornadoes battered its five coastal towns and flash floods washed away an entire village.

And local officials said Cebu, a metropolis of 800,000 people and the country’s second largest city, was in a “state of calamity”.

Lingling, packing winds of 75 kilometres an hour, crept in from the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday morning, dumping heavy rain on central islands and sections of the major southern island of Mindanao, including Cagayan de Oro city.

“So far based on the official report given to us by our men in the area, 54 people were killed and 110 were missing in Camiguin,” military southern command spokesman Colonel Danilo Servando said over radio station DZRH.

Eight people drowned in Cagayan de Oro while two children were lost to rampaging waters in Cebu.

Up to 20 typhoons and storms visit this southeast Asian archipelago every year, but few hit Camiguin and Mindanao and fewer arrive later than October, weathermen said.

“What happened in Camiguin was surprising, especially that the tropical storm came in November,” said a civil defense official who asked not to be named.

The official said Lingling’s devastation was “maybe only comparable” with flash floods that swamped the central city of Ormoc 10 years ago, killing several thousand people.

Servando said government efforts to respond to the emergency had been “limited” as helicopters meant to carry supplies and rescue workers were grounded by bad weather.

The Office of Civil Defense said all electricity and about 50 percent of communication lines on Camiguin were cut off.

Roads and at least 50 houses in the islands capital of Mambajao were washed away by floods while a vital bridge in another town was rendered impassable by high waters.

“This is the first time this has happened in Camiguin... that there are flash floods across the island,” provincial governor Pedro Romualdo said.

In Negros Occidental province, a fisherman drowned while trying to retrieve a fishing boat in a swollen river in the village of Tiglawigna, while a woman was swept away by floods in another village and later found dead.

Authorities were also trying to verify reports that a fishing boat with seven men capsized off this central city.

Much of Cebu city, on the central island of the same name, was also under water after more than 12 hours of continuous rain.

Provincial governor Pablo Garcia declared the island of 1.5 million people in a “state of calamity”.

Cars were submerged in neck-deep waters on one major Cebu highway, while landslides cut off another highway.

At least one commercial flight from Manila aborted a Cebu landing and returned to Manila due to poor visibility, local aviation officials said.—AFP