At least 21 people are dead and 40 more have been saved after a Philippine passenger boat overturned in strong winds on Laguna Lake, police said.
A rescue operation continues, police said without giving figures for the total number of people on the MBCA Aya when it capsized in the Rizal province on Thursday.
The boat overturned when its passengers moved to one side of the boat in a panic when it was battered by fierce winds about 150 feet from Kalinawan village in Binangonan town, the coastguard said.
Rizal provincial police said it immediately launched a search and rescue operation with the help of the coastguard and other authorities.
“The operation is still ongoing for the possible rescue of other passengers,” the force said in a statement.
Typhoon Doksuri moved away on Thursday after battering the northern Philippines and worsening seasonal monsoon rains in a large swath of the archipelago.
The boat disaster brings the death toll from stormy weather to at least 30.
At least nine people were reported killed earlier, mostly due to landslides, flooding and toppled trees, and thousands were displaced, disaster response officials said.
Sea travel was suspended in many ports during Doksuri’s onslaught from Tuesday to Wednesday, stranding thousands of passengers and cargo trucks.
The no-sail orders were gradually lifted on Thursday as the weather improved in many areas.
Coastguard spokesman Armand Balilo said the passenger boat was cleared to sail from Binangonan to the nearby island of Talim because the typhoon had blown out of the country.
At least four northern provinces remained under cyclone wind alert, banning fishing boats and smaller vessels from venturing out to sea.
Rains, however, continued to swamp several towns and cities farther south, including in the densely populated capital region, metropolitan Manila, which lies to the west of the Rizal province.
Sea accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of frequent storms, badly maintained boats, overcrowding and weak enforcement of safety regulations.
In December 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker, killing more than 4,300 people in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.
