Severe Tropical Storm Nalgae hit land on Saturday.
The Phillipines was blasted with a brutal tropical storm on October 29, getting hit with winds almost reaching 60 miles per hour.
While 45 have been oficially declared dead at the time of writing, the mayor of Datu Odin Sinsuat fears "It could be more than a hundred.
Regional civil defense chief Naguib Sinarimbo wasn't much more optimistic: "This is already a retrieval operation because the village (Kusiong) has been buried under rock and mud for more than a day."
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr blamed local civil defense officials in Mindanao over their lack of preparations for the storm. "It will be important for us to look back and see why this happened. Why did we fail to evacuate them? Why do we have such a high casualty figure?"
The eye of Nalgae was expected to pass south of Philippines' capital Manila. Manila is home to 13,000,000 people.
"If it’s not necessary or important, we should avoid going out today because it is dangerous," national civil defense director Rafaelito Alejandro said.
The country currently has 5,000 rescue teams on standby.
It's unclear exactly when or where the rescue teams will be needed. The damage was never expected to be this bad, and has caught local governments by surprise.
Villager Mercedes Mocadef stood by the dead body of his cousin, saying "had she died of illness it would have been less painful." The girl's mother also perished in the storm.
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