The Philippines continues a massive clean up operation today following scenes of devastation resulting from the passage of two major storms within a week.
Tropical depression 'Merbok' hit the main island of Luzon on Tuesday, just days after typhoon 'Muifa' carved a trail of distruction further south.
The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) said at least 18 people had died in the northern provinces of Aurora and Neuva Ecija as a result of tropical depression 'Merbok'. Fortunately this storm dissipated quickly - breaking down over the Cordillera mountain range on Tuesday night.
'Muifa' however is still whirling away...
'Muifa' launched its devastating attack on the Philippines at the weekend. 61 lives were lost and coastguards continue to search waters around the central islands of Romblon, Mindoro and Palawan for 80 people who are still missing. The storm destroyed over 30,000 homes and over 200,000 people were evacuated.
The storm exited the islands into the South China Sea late Sunday and continued tracking westwards. It is now heading towards the Gulf of Thailand, and looks set to just clip southern Vietnam in the next 24 hours.
'Muifa' has now lost some of its orginal potency and has been downgraded to tropical storm status. However, the winds around the system are still gusting up to 80mph and promise to bring stormy scenes to southern Thailand by the end of the week.
The storm is then set to continue westwards into the Bay of Bengal during the weekend - where a long passage over warm waters see it forecast to reinvigorate...
Watch this space as it certainly looks like we haven't seen the last of 'Muifa' as a typhoon!
