The number of deaths and missing following massive flooding and landslides caused by Tropical Storm Trami in the Philippines reached nearly 130 and the president said Saturday that many areas remained isolated and people needed to be rescued.

Trami blew in from the northwest Philippines on Friday, leaving at least 85 people dead and 41 others missing in one of the Southeast Asian archipelago’s deadliest and most destructive storms so far this year, the government’s disaster response agency said. The death toll is expected to rise as information comes in from previously isolated areas.

27 INJURED IN EXPLOSION AFTER PILE OF ILLEGAL CONFIQUED FIREWORKS IGNITED IN SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES

Dozens of police, firefighters and other emergency personnel, backed by three backhoes and sniffer dogs, on Saturday unearthed one of the last two missing villagers in the lakeside town of Talisay, in the Batangas province.

A father, who was waiting for news of his missing 14-year-old daughter, cried as rescuers placed the remains in a black body bag. Distraught, he followed the police officers carrying the body bag down a muddy village lane to a police van when a crying resident approached him to express her sympathy.

The man said he was sure it was his daughter, but authorities needed to carry out checks to confirm the identity of the villager dug up in the mound.

Marcelino Aringo speaks near his damaged house after a landslide triggered by tropical storm Trami hit houses, killing several villagers in Talisay, Batangas province, Philippines on Saturday. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

At a nearby downtown basketball gym, more than a dozen white coffins were laid side by side, containing the remains of those found in the cascading piles of mud, rocks and trees Thursday afternoon on the steep slope of a wooded ridge. Sampaloc village of Talisay.

President Ferdinand Marcoswho inspected another hard-hit area southeast of Manila on Saturday, said the unusually large volume of precipitation dumped by the storm – including some areas that received one to two months’ worth of rainfall in just 24 hours – exceeded flood controls in the provinces. by Trami.

“There was too much water,” Marcos told reporters.

“We have not yet finished our rescue work,” he said. “Our problem here is that there are still many areas that remain flooded and are not accessible even to large trucks.”

His administration, Marcos said, plans to begin work on a major flood control project that could address the unprecedented threats posed by climate change.

More than 5 million people were in the storm’s path, including nearly half a million, most of whom fled to more than 6,300 emergency shelters in several provinces, the government agency said.

At an emergency Cabinet meeting, Marcos raised concerns over reports from government forecasters that the storm – the 11th to hit the Philippines this year – could turn around next week as it is pushed back by high pressure winds in the South China Sea. .

The storm was predicted to hit Vietnam over the weekend if it did not veer off course.

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The Philippine government closed schools and government offices for the third day on Friday to ensure the safety of millions of people on the main northern island of Luzon. Inter-island ferry services were also suspended, stranding thousands of people.

The weather improved in many areas on Saturday, allowing clean-up work in most areas.

Every year, around twenty storms and typhoons hit the Philippines, an archipelago in Southeast Asia located between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful tropical cyclones on record, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing and razed entire villages.