Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr declared a state of emergency today following Typhoon Kalmaegi, which claimed at least 114 lives and hundreds of others were lost in central provinces in the worst natural disaster to strike the nation this year. 

Most of the deaths came as a result of drowning in flash floods, and 127 others were missing, many of them in the central province of Cebu, which was the worst hit. All of the tropical cyclones left the archipelago and struck the South China Sea on 5th November.

The onslaught of the typhoon caused almost 2 million people and displaced over 560 000 residents of the villages and almost 450 000 of them were evacuated to emergency shelters, according to the Office of Civil Defence. 

The declaration of a state of national calamity issued by Marcos at a meeting with disaster-response officials to determine the aftermath of the typhoon would enable the government to disburse emergency funds promptly and stop food hoarding and overpricing.