Philippines: Nearly 46,000 people flee homes due to floods

Christmas Day floods in the Philippines forced the evacuation of nearly 46,000 people from their homes, civil defence officials said on Monday.

Two people were killed and nine others were missing after heavy seasonal rain inundated parts of the southern region of Mindanao, the officials added.

The disaster dampened celebrations on the primarily-Catholic nation's most important holiday.

"The waters rose above the chest in some areas, but today the rains have ceased," civil defence worker Robinson Lacre told AFP by phone from Gingoog city, which accounted for 33,000 of the 45,700 people evacuated from their homes.

The coastguard said it rescued members of more than two dozen families in Ozamiz city and Clarin town at the height of the flooding.

Photos released by the coastguard showed its orange-clad rescuers cradling toddlers plucked from homes in waist-deep floodwaters.

Two deaths were reported in the town of Jimenez.

The central and southern Philippines have been hit with bad weather, as the disaster-prone nation of 110 million people began a long Christmas holiday.

Millions of people travel to their hometowns for family reunions during this period.

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