'Pepeng' lingers after killing 16

MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Typhoon “Pepeng” (international codename: Parma) weakened into a tropical storm that lingered off the Philippine coast Monday, drenching northern provinces as well as Taiwan after killing 16 people and causing widespread flooding and landslides.

Chief government forecaster Nathaniel Cruz said Parma headed northwest into the South China Sea after passing over the Philippines, which is still reeling from an earlier storm that killed almost 300 people. Parma was now almost still because Typhoon Melor, which was approaching from the west, was pulling it back toward the coast. 

Parma was not expected to make another landfall but will continue to dump heavy rain, Cruz said. The storm was located 143 miles (230 kilometers) off northern Laoag city, packing winds of 59 mph (95 kph) and gusts of up to 75 mph (120 kph). 

Typhoon Melor over the northern Pacific Ocean was pushing west, Cruz said. It did not pose a direct threat to the rain-soaked northern Philippines, he said. 

Parma hit the main island of Luzon on Saturday. Flooding and landslides over the weekend killed at least 16 people, but the capital, Manila — still awash in floodwaters from a storm barely a week earlier — was spared a new disaster. 

In Taiwan, authorities had issued landslide and flash flooding warnings for eastern and southern areas in preparation, and evacuated 6,582 residents from vulnerable regions. 

Parma spared the island its full brunt Monday, veering off its southwestern coast. 

Still, it brought very heavy rains. The Central Weather Bureau reported 29 inches (746 millimeters) of precipitation in the eastern county of Yilan since Sunday. That comes just weeks after a deadly typhoon hit southern Taiwan causing torrential rains and the island's worst flooding in decades. 

Parma hit the Philippines just eight days after a tropical storm “Ondoy” (international codename: Ketsana) inundated Manila and surrounding provinces, killing almost 300 people. Saturday's storm dropped more rain on the capital, slowing the cleanup and making conditions more miserable. 

Still, classes in and around Manila were reopened Monday after a weeklong closure, except where schools were turned into evacuation centers. 

At the Santa Elena High School in flood-hit Marikina city, east of Manila, muddied teachers and students turned up for class. They were still coming to terms with their ordeal. 

"We were near tears because of the situation, especially over the past days when the students were texting us that they have lost their homes," said teacher Virma Mariano. "We have teachers who went through a near-death experience when they were being chased by the flood, they went from one roof to the other." 

Last week, Ketsana killed at least 288 people and damaged the homes of 3 million in the Philippines before striking other Southeast Asian nations, killing 162 in Vietnam, 18 in Cambodia and at least 16 in Laos.