“We have yet to calculate the exact number of pigs, cattle and poultry lost in the floods, but I can say that the losses were huge,” Gaspar said.

Driver Janford Bonifacio said he saw Gonzaga residents digging for their animals, many dead but some still alive, under mud and uprooted trees.

“I saw people digging for their cattle that were still alive, and some were trying to save their pigs they found among the logs,” he told AFP.

Uprooted trees also damaged a major bridge in Gonzaga, isolating Santa Ana, a coastal city of about 36,000 people.

“Most of the evacuees have returned home, but we have detained some of them. First we have to check if their houses are still safe for habitation,” Bonifacio Espiritu, chief of operations of the civil defense office, told AFP from Cagayan.

By Friday, Usagi, now downgraded to a severe tropical storm, was over the Luzon Strait at a reduced speed of 110 kilometers (68 miles) per hour as it headed toward southern Taiwan.

But the streak of violent weather was forecast to continue in the central Philippines, with Man-yi, reclassified as a typhoon and already packing winds of up to 150 kilometers per hour, expected to hit the impoverished island in Catanduanes province on Saturday evening.

– 207,000 houses hit –

A UN assessment said last month’s storms damaged or destroyed 207,000 homes and forced 700,000 people to seek temporary shelter.

Many families lacked essentials such as sleeping mats, hygiene kits and cooking supplies and had limited access to safe drinking water.

Thousands of hectares of farmland have been destroyed, and persistent flooding could delay replanting efforts and worsen food supply problems, the report added.

About 20 major storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian nation or surrounding waters each year, killing dozens of people, but it is unusual for several such weather events to occur in a small window.

The weather service said this tends to happen during seasonal episodes of La Nina, a climate phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean that pushes more warm water toward Asia, causing heavy rain and flooding in the region and drought in the southern United States.

cgm/tym/rsc

By Cecil Morella

AFP