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Philippines

Tropical storm Wutip kills 3 in Philippines, 17 hurt

MANILA, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Three people were killed, 17 injured and 13 were missing as tropical storm Wutip left the Philippines on Thursday, after causing floods and landslides in parts of the north.

Tens of thousands of people were forced to seek shelter in public buildings in Manila and 13 northern provinces in the Luzon area because of the damage caused by Wutip, the fourth storm to hit the Philippines this year.

The rain this week from Wutip and a previous tropical storm, Pabuk, ended a three-month spell that dried up dams and farms and threatened water rationing in the capital.

Glenn Rabonza, head of the civil defence office, said rescue and relief teams had been sent out to deliver food, medicines, warm clothes and fresh water to people marooned in isolated areas north of Manila.

Rabonza said about 130 villages in the capital region were still under water even after the rains stopped.

Wide areas of the rice-producing Luzon provinces were also flooded after water overflowed from a dam reservoir in Bulacan, just north of Manila, he added.

On Thursday, the health department warned of an outbreak of water-borne diseases due to flooding and contamination of the water system in the capital.

Eric Tayag, head of the health department's epidemology centre, advised people in flooded areas to boil drinking water and avoid wading through flood waters because of a potential outbreak of disease.

Storms regularly hit the Philippines, and in one of the worst disasters in recent years more than 5,000 people died on the central island of Leyte in floods triggered by a typhoon.

Wutip, or butterfly, was now headed for Taiwan, weather officials said.

A boy was electrocuted in knee-deep flood water and died in Manila on Thursday, and 10 people were taken to hospitals for injuries from electric shocks, disaster relief officials said.

Two people were killed in landslides in the northern region of Luzon, where Wutip dumped heavy rain and blew winds up to 75 kph (45 mph), the Office of Civil Defence said.

Seven people were injured in landslides in Antipolo City, about 20 km (12 miles) east of Manila, and in Zambales, northwest of Manila.