Typhoon Mangkhut: More than 40 bodies found in Philippines landslide

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September 17, 2018 3:17 PM

Mangkhut, a super typhoon that slammed into the northern Philippine province of Luzon on Saturday, continued a path of destruction across southern China on Sunday and into Monday.

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Emergency workers in the Philippines recovered more than 40 bodies from the muddied wreckage of a gold miners’ bunkhouse after Typhoon Mangkhut set off a landslide, burying the remote northern town of Itogon in a river of debris, officials said Monday.

In the Philippines, the police on Monday gave an unofficial death toll of 66 people nationwide, though that number was almost certain to rise. At the scene of the landslide, searchers had compiled a list of 61 people believed missing and presumed dead. In China, at least four people were killed as of Monday, according to the state news media.

Francis Tolentino, a senior adviser to President Rodrigo Duterte, estimated that nationwide 5.7 million people had been affected by the storm, which hit the country at the height of its powers, with wind speeds topping 150 mph.

Authorities said the prospectors, some of whom are believed to be children, were working illegally at the mine site, which was shut down in the 1990s amid concerns of environmental degradation.

As Mangkhut churned its way through mainland China’s Guangdong province, one of the country’s most populous, it killed four people, according to the state news media.

Workers in Guangdong on Monday cleared away debris, broken glass and fallen trees from a storm that many feared could have been worse. There were reports of scattered damage in the city of Guangzhou, where falling trees killed three of the victims, and in Dongguan, where a man was crushed by a toppled billboard.

Parts of Yangchun, a city near Yangjiang, were flooded Monday as the tail of the storm continued to dump rain across the province. By Monday afternoon, the storm had reached Yunnan province, where officials warned of mudslides

The air travel disruptions that rippled across Asia from the storm continued into Monday. Some flights arrived at and departed Hong Kong’s airport Monday morning, but many others were canceled or delayed.

The once fearsome typhoon was downgraded to a tropical depression as it moved from Guangdong into neighboring Guangxi province on Monday afternoon, according to the Hong Kong Observatory.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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