Typhoon Fung-wong weakens in the Philippines; four dead

By Adrian Portugal and Eloisa Lopez

ISABELA, Philippines (Reuters) -One of the year's most powerful storms in the Philippines, Super Typhoon Fung-wong has killed four people, authorities said on Monday, as they began assessing damage after its fury abated, though no reports of major destruction have flowed in yet.

More than a million people were evacuated before Fung-wong hit land on Sunday, unleashing fierce howling winds, heavy rain and storm swells on the most populous island of Luzon that left some sleepless through the night.

"We could not sleep because of the winds hitting our metal sheets and tree branches falling," said Romeo Mariano, who sheltered with his grandmother in their home in the province of Isabela. 

"When we got out to check our home, we saw the damage."

Early indications suggest the tally of dead will be "minimal", however, civil defence senior official Raffy Alejandro told a media briefing.

A mudslide buried a house to kill two children in the northern town of Kayapa in the province of Nueva Vizcaya, regional civil defence official Alvin Ayson said by telephone.

They followed two deaths from drowning and fallen debris.

FOUR TOWNS ISOLATED IN PROVINCE WHERE STORM MADE LANDFALL

Landslides also isolated at least four towns in the province of Aurora, where Fung-wong made landfall, Alejandro added. 

Forecast to shift northeast to Taiwan, Fung-wong was packing winds on Monday whose speeds had dropped to between 120 kph and 150 kph (75 mph to 93 mph), but remained a typhoon, whose outer bands could dump rain in coastal areas and trigger storm surges.

The storm is the 21st this year in the Philippines, coming after Typhoon Kalmaegi killed 224 last week, with five dead in Vietnam.

The back-to-back storms came as officials of more than 190 countries gathered in Brazil for Monday's opening of the COP30 climate summit.

Scientists have said rising sea temperatures pack more energy into tropical cyclones, making them more intense and boosting rainfall.

Fung-wong is forecast to hit Taiwan's densely populated west coast on Wednesday, though its heaviest rain is expected along the mountainous east coast, where 18 people died in September in flooding unleashed by an earlier typhoon. 

The government has already ordered evacuations in the town of Guangfu, the scene of those deadly floods.

(Reporting by Adrian Portugal and Eloisa Lopez; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Writing by Mikhail Flores and Karen Lema; Editing by John Mair and Clarence Fernandez)