Typhoon Kalmaegi death toll reaches 26 as Philippines battles floods, landslides

A Philippine air force helicopter carrying five personnel disappeared over Agusan del Sur province on Tuesday while attempting to deliver emergency supplies to communities ravaged by Typhoon Kalmaegi. The Super Huey went down near Loreto, according to the military's Eastern Mindanao Command, which launched search efforts to locate those aboard. No immediate word came on their condition or what caused the aircraft to fall from the sky.

By Tuesday afternoon, the confirmed death toll from the typhoon had climbed to at least 26, with the heaviest concentration of casualties in Cebu province and the surrounding central islands. Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV, deputy administrator of the Office of Civil Defence, cautioned that officials were still verifying the details of many of these deaths. An elderly person drowned in Southern Leyte after the storm made landfall just after midnight. In Bohol province, a tree fell and killed another resident. The storm brought sustained winds of 130 kilometres per hour with gusts reaching 180 kph when it was last tracked near Jordan in Guimaras province, and forecasters expected it to cross Palawan and move into the South China Sea by late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

In Cebu's coastal town of Liloan, residents found themselves stranded on their roofs as floodwaters rose around them. Gwendolyn Pang, secretary-general of the Philippine Red Cross, described the impossible situation facing rescue workers: the waters were choked with debris, vehicles floated past, and the organization was receiving desperate calls for help faster than it could respond. "We have to wait for the flood to subside," Pang told the Associated Press. The timing compounded the crisis—Cebu province was still in the early stages of recovery from a 6.9-magnitude earthquake on September 30 that had killed at least 79 people and damaged numerous homes across the region.

On Homonhon island in Eastern Samar province, strong winds tore or damaged the roofs of approximately 300 houses in Guiuan town. Mayor Annaliza Gonzales Kwan reported no deaths or injuries there, noting that the damage came from wind rather than flooding. Guiuan carried particular weight in the national memory—it was among the first areas struck by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, a storm that killed more than 7,300 people or left them missing and displaced over four million. "We've been through a lot, and bigger than this," Kwan said, speaking to a community's hard-won resilience.

Before Kalmaegi made landfall, authorities had ordered more than 387,000 people to evacuate from eastern and central provinces to safer ground. Officials had issued warnings of heavy rainfall, destructive winds, and storm surges as high as three metres. The coast guard banned inter-island ferries and fishing boats from operating due to treacherous seas, leaving more than 3,500 passengers and cargo drivers stranded at nearly 100 seaports across the country. At least 186 domestic flights were cancelled.

The Philippines confronts roughly 20 typhoons and tropical storms annually. The archipelago also sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a zone of intense seismic and volcanic activity that exposes the nation to earthquakes and eruptions alongside cyclonic weather. For a country accustomed to such recurring disasters, the convergence of typhoon, flood, and earthquake—as Cebu was experiencing—tests the limits of preparedness and recovery capacity.