Philippine typhoon deaths climb to 116 as new storm looms

Cliff Venzon and Neil Jerome Morales, Bloomberg News on Nov 5, 2025

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Typhoon Kalmaegi killed at least 116 people in the Philippines, becoming the deadliest storm to hit the Southeast Asian nation in a year, with dozens more missing.

The typhoon, locally known as Tino, also displaced more than half a million people as widespread floods submerged homes and trapped residents on rooftops. The central province of Cebu, which is still reeling from a recent earthquake that killed dozens, reported the most casualties, according to disaster response officials on Wednesday.

A Philippine Air Force chopper deployed to aid typhoon response crashed, killing six crew aboard, the military said. Twenty six people are still missing, Civil Defense Deputy Administrator Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro told ABS-CBN News Channel.

Kalmaegi has slightly intensified as it moves away from landmass, packing maximum sustained winds of 130 kilometers (81 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 180 kilometers per hour, according to the latest bulletin from weather bureau Pagasa. The second-highest alert in a five-level typhoon warning system remains up in the northernmost part of Palawan province near the South China Sea.

The typhoon, which dumped a month’s worth of rain in just a day in Cebu, is expected to exit Philippine waters as early as Wednesday night and will likely re-intensify to reach its peak while on the way to Vietnam, which is still reeling from a massive flooding that killed dozens.

A new tropical cyclone is expected to soon enter the Philippines and may reach super typhoon category on Nov. 8, Pagasa said, warning that “life-threatening stormy conditions” may occur over the main Luzon island early next week.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered Cabinet members to monitor the situation of typhoon-hit residents, Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said in a regular press briefing. “In times of disasters, President Marcos’ priority is the welfare of the people,” she said.

Kalmaegi, the 20th storm to strike the Philippines this year, is putting a spotlight on the unfolding corruption scandal in the government’s flood-control projects worth billions of pesos that has triggered public outrage. The nation is battered by around 20 cyclones a year, making it one of the world’s disaster-prone nations.

Cebu Governor Pamela Baricuatro has appealed for help. “26 billion (pesos) of flood control funds for Cebu yet we are flooded to the max,” she said in a Facebook post.