Flash floods and landslides caused by tropical storm Jangmi, with a local name Seniang, have left 53 people killed, officials reported Wednesday.
The tropical storm hit Tuesday in the provinces of Samar and Leyte, the areas affected by typhoon Haiyan last year. 29 people were reportedly buried - 10 of them died, 8 went missing and 136,000 evacuated their homes on the holidays.
Mayor of Catbalogan, Samar, Stephanie Uy-Tan told the AFP news agency that they did not expect the storm to be big. "There was no evacuation, people were just advised to prepare for possible landslides."
National Disaster Relief Agency Director Alexander Pama said that information and warnings have been disseminated prior to the storm hitting the country, amidst all stricture against the government's lack of information and precautionary measures to the people of the provinces badly affected.
The Philippines is a country that has been experiencing an average of 20 storms per year. The strongest storm of the country and the world in 2013, Haiyan, left 7,000 people killed and thousands displaced. While the strongest storm in the country this year, Hagupit, locally named Ruby, has also affected the province of Eastern Samar in the first week of December.
Meanwhile, Jangmi has weakened into a tropical depression as it has been moving west-southwest with a maximum sustained winds of 55 kilometres per hour, with an overall speed of 13 kilometres per hour.