MANILA, Philippines, Nov 18, (AP): Typhoon Man-yi left at least three villagers missing, destroyed houses, knocked out power in entire towns and displaced large numbers of villagers before blowing away from the northern Philippines, worsening the crisis wreaked by five previous storms, officials said Monday. Man-yi was one of the strongest of the six major storms to hit the northern Philippines in less than a month and had sustained winds of up to 195 kilometers (125 miles) per hour when it slammed into the eastern island province of Catanduanes on Saturday night.

Disaster-response officials said they were checking if the deaths of two villagers were directly related to Man-yi’s onslaught in eastern Camarines Norte province. They said a search was underway for a couple and their child after their shanty was swept away in rampaging rivers in northern Nueva Ecija province.

More than a million people were affected by the typhoon and two previous storms, including nearly 700,000 who fled their homes and moved to emergency shelters or relatives' homes, according to the Official of Civil Defense. Nearly 8,000 houses were damaged or destroyed and more than 100 cities and towns were hit by power outages due to toppled electric posts, it said. In the worst-hit province of Camarines, officials pleaded for additional help after fierce winds and rain damaged more houses and cut off electricity and water supplies in the entire province, along with cellphone connections in many areas, provincial information officer Camille Gianan said.

Welfare officials transported food aid, drinking water and other help but more is needed over the coming months, Gianan said. Many villagers will need construction materials to rebuild their houses, she said. "They have not recovered from the previous storms when the super typhoon hit,” Gianan told The Associated Press. "It’s been one calamity after another.”

The rare number of back-to-back storms and typhoons that lashed Luzon in just three weeks left more than 160 people dead, affected 9 million people and caused such extensive damage to communities, infrastructure and farmlands that the Philippines may have to import more rice, a staple food. In an emergency meeting as Man-yi approached, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr asked his Cabinet and provincial officials to brace for "the worst-case scenario."