Torrential rains brought by tropical storm Trami triggered widespread flooding in eastern Philippines, leaving at least 14 people dead, authorities said on Wednesday. Thousands of people were marooned in their homes and on rooftops as emergency services struggled to respond to a deluge of rescue requests. The storm, locally called Kristine, was advancing towards the northeastern provinces, prompting the government to close public schools and offices on the island of Luzon, except those directly involved in disaster response.

The storm killed at least 12 people in the central city of Naga, police chief Erwin Rebellon said. It also left dead two people in the town of Palanas in Masbate and the town of Bagamanoc in Catanduanes province, the Bicol regional civil defence office said in a statement. Authorities issued storm warnings in more than two dozen provinces, including capital Manila, which could be lashed by torrential rains despite not being in the storm’s path. Trami was packing sustained winds of 53mph with gusts reaching 65mph on Wednesday.

The storm was forecast to make landfall on Wednesday night or early Thursday along the Aurora coast, and then sweep across northern Luzon’s mountainous regions, valleys and plains before moving into the South China Sea later in the week. It had already displaced thousands of villagers from low-lying areas prone to flooding and landslides and thousands more were expected to evacuate as conditions worsened through the day. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr cancelled all his appointments “to focus on coordinating the government’s comprehensive search and rescue and relief efforts" and convened an emergency meeting at military headquarters to discuss disaster mitigation efforts, communications secretary Cesar Chavez said.

"People have been stuck on roofs of their houses for several hours now," former vice president Leni Robredo, who lives in the city of Naga, said in a social media post early on Wednesday. "Many of our rescue trucks have stalled due to the floods." Ms Robredo hoped that the flooding would ease at low tide on Wednesday morning. In Camarines Sur, one of the provinces hit the hardest, Congressman Luis Raymund Villafuerte called for national intervention. He said local authorities lacked the resources to deal with the scale of the disaster.

The storm had already affected millions of people in the Philippines by Wednesday with floodwaters rising quickly in many areas. In the province of Quezon, governor Angelina Tan said that floodwaters reached up to 3m in some locations, forcing at least 8,000 people to evacuate. As rescue operations continued, Ms Tan emphasised the need for additional rescue personnel and equipment, including boats and trucks capable of navigating through the deluge.

Coast guard personnel were working to rescue people from flooded villages in Sorsogon, Albay, Camarines Sur since Tuesday. But provincial authorities admitted that the number of available rescue boats and personnel were insufficient to handle the volume of appeals for help. Thousands of passengers and cargo workers were stranded at seaports after the coast guard suspended inter-island ferry services and barred fishing boats from sailing into the increasingly rough seas. // www.independent.co.uk