At least four people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced as a powerful typhoon pummelled the Philippines for the second day.
All the fatalities came from the province of Northern Samar Island in the eastern Philippines where typhoon Melor made its first landfall on Monday, according to regional disaster relief officials.
The storm has since weakened slightly to pack maximum sustained winds of 140km/h near the centre and gusts of up to 170km/h.
Two of the victims drowned in floods, one died due to hypothermia and another died after he was hit by flying debris, the officials said on Tuesday.
Typhoon Melor also toppled trees and electric posts, totally and partially destroyed houses, as well as rice paddies submerged in waters, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
Thousands of air and sea passengers were stranded in different ports and airports as 64 domestic flights were cancelled on Tuesday, while hundreds of ships were stopped from sailing due to bad weather.
The weather bureau said Melor made a total of four landfalls, the latest on Tuesday morning in the town of Pinamalayan in Mindoro Island west of Manila.
A regional civil defence official said 724,105 people were forced to flee their homes in the western provinces of Albay and Sorsogon, amid warnings of storm surges and flash floods.
The bureau said while Manila would not be directly hit by the storm, the capital would experience moderate to heavy rainfall.
An average of 20 storms and typhoons hit the Philippines each year.
In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest typhoon on record to make landfall, left more than 7000 people dead and missing as flash floods and walls of seawater washed away villages in eastern Philippines.
