Heavy storm hits Philippines, kills fourteen

November 01, 2009 Tropical Storm Marinae is heading toward central Vietnam after lashing the central Philippines, where authorities say it killed at least 14 people.

The Philippines National Disaster Coordinating Council said on Sunday that most of the deaths were reported in Camarines Norte province. It added that four people remain missing.

Marinae made landfall over the Philippines on Friday as a typhoon, triggering floods and displacing thousands of people still recovering from storms that hit the country weeks earlier.

Authorities, however, said that the damage from Marinae was less than the three earlier cyclones Ketsana, Parma and Lupit that battered the Philippines from late September to mid-October, killing more than 900 people.

Many areas in the central Philippines remained flooded on Sunday, but that did not stop Filipinos from visiting cemeteries to pay respects to the dead on All Saints Day. Some people visited flooded cemeteries by boat.

Marinae weakened into a tropical storm as it crossed the central Philippines and entered the South China Sea. It is expected to make landfall in central Vietnam on Monday.