Typhoon kills 4 in Philippines, cuts power

Tattered lanterns, festive lights and tin roofs littered towns in the central Philippines on Tuesday after Typhoon Melor swept through, killing at least four people and leaving millions without power ahead of Christmas.

Distraught survivors surveyed their damaged homes on the eve of the traditional nine-day Christmas vigil that Filipinos observe with dawn masses and rice cakes. Christmas is the most celebrated holiday in the Philippines, 80 percent of its 100 million people are Catholic, and decorations such as colourful lights and lanterns had already been put up in most towns. “It will be a very sad Christmas and a dark one because we have no power. But the important thing is everyone around me is still moving,” 54-year-old rice farmer Noemi Pesigan said. Melor blew out the windows of Pesigan’s two-storey brick and wood house in Bulan, a small farming town about 350 kilometres southeast of the capital, Manila, and she survived the storm by sheltering in a nearby shop. The typhoon tore in off the Pacific Ocean on Monday afternoon and hit farming and fishing communities in the eastern Philippines with winds of up to 185 kilometres (115 miles) an hour.