AMN
The death toll from a tropical storm in the Philippines climbed swiftly to 180. Police said, rescuers pulled dozens of bodies from a swollen river.
Tropical Storm Tembin has lashed the nation’s second-largest island of Mindanao since yesterday, triggering flash floods and mudslides.
Tembin, with winds of up to 80km/h (50 mph), has passed across Mindanao and reached the resort islands of Palawan, and will now move further west.
The Philippines suffers regularly from deadly tropical storms, although Mindanao is not often hit.
Tembin, known as Vinta in the Philippines, started lashing Mindanao on Friday, with a state of emergency declared in some parts, including the Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur regions.
The Philippines is pummelled by 20 major storms each year on average, many of them deadly. But Mindanao, home to 20 million people, is rarely hit by these cyclones. Rescuers retrieved 36 bodies from the Salog River in Mindanao.
