Following Typhoon Kalmaegi, the biggest natural catastrophe to strike the Philippines this year, which left at least 241 people dead and missing in central regions, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. proclaimed a state of emergency on Thursday.
Before the tropical storm swept out of the archipelago on Wednesday into the South China Sea, Kalmaegi left at least 114 people dead, primarily from drowning in flash floods, and 127 missing, majority of them in the severely affected central province of Cebu.
Over 560,000 villagers were displaced by the typhoon's onslaught, which affected almost 2 million people. Of those, nearly 450,000 were relocated to emergency shelters.
During a meeting with disaster response authorities to evaluate the typhoon's aftermath, Marcos declared an emergency, which would enable the government to distribute emergency funds more quickly and avoid food hoarding and overpricing.
