Typhoon Parma tore off roofs, brought down power lines and left at least four people dead as it hammered part of the northern Philippines early Saturday.
Parma is the second storm to strike the country in eight days. It cut across the mountainous northeast edge of the country's main island, Luzon, but spared the capital of Manila after changing course to head northward overnight on Friday.
Manila is recovering from major flooding caused by Tropical Storm Ketsana. It passed through on Sept. 26, killing at least 288 people and damaging an estimated 3 million homes.
Four people have reportedly died from the latest storm. One man drowned and another died from exposure to the cold and wet weather in the Philippine province of Isabela, said Lt. Col. Loreto Magundayao, who's with an army division based in the province.
Another two people died in Camarines Sur province, said The National Disaster Coordinating Council. One man fell off of a roof and a two-year-old boy drowned.
But the typhoon's effects "were barely felt" in the capital, Manny Mogato, a Reuters correspondent, told Â鶹´«Ã½ Channel on Saturday from the Philippines. "There were rains but the flood waters did not rise."
He added that Parma is expected to cause millions of dollars in crop damage across several predominantly agricultural northern provinces.
As the typhoon bore down on the Philippines on Friday, authorities moved tens of thousands of people to safe ground. About 10,000 troops were dispatched to help with rescue and relief efforts.
The storm was packing winds of 175 kilometres per hour when it hit the coast Saturday afternoon but weakened as it moved inland, according to the national weather bureau.
The bureau had warned that the typhoon could cause landslides, flooding and tsunami-like tidal surges along the Philippines' east coast. But officials began moving evacuated residents home after the storm moved north.
The scale of damage won't likely be known until Sunday or later, after communication lines are repaired, officials said.
Parma is now approaching Taiwan, where authorities issued a storm warning and evacuated villagers in the southern county of Kaohsiung. A previous typhoon that hit Taiwan in August killed about 700 people.
Asian-Pacific countries have suffered a week of destruction in which an earthquake struck Indonesia on Wednesday, a tsunami swept ashore on the Samoan islands and Typhoon Ketsana passed across Southeast Asia. The disasters have left at least 1,500 dead.
With files from The Associated Press
