Thousands flee as typhoon lashes nation

Typhoon Sarika lashed the main Philippine island of Luzon on Sunday, flattening homes and toppling trees and power pylons as more than 12,000 people fled to safer ground, officials said.

Minor landslides and flooding were also reported a day after the cyclone brushed past the remote eastern island of Catanduanes and left one person drowned and three others missing there.

"We were told roofs were ripped off houses and there were fallen trees but that's about the extent of damage that we know of," Ricardo Jalad, head of the government's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, told reporters.