• 21st storm of 2025 to hit Philippines makes landfall.
• Two die from drowning and debris in heavy rains and wind.
• Pope Leo offers prayers for predominantly Catholic nation.

ISABELA: Super Typhoon Fung-Wong made landfall in the Philippines on Sunday with two fatalities reported and one million people evacuated ahead of one of the nation’s most powerful storms this year.

The storm crossed over the north of the archipelago’s most populous island, Luzon, weather bureau PAGASA said, with torrential rain, sustained winds of 185 kph (115 mph) and gusts of up to 230 kph (140 mph).

It was the 21st storm this year to hit a nation only just recovering from Typhoon Kalmaegi, which left 224 dead in the Philippines and five in Vietnam.

“We heard on the news that the typhoon is very strong, so we evacuated early,” said Christopher Sanchez, 50, who camped with his family on a basketball court in Isabela province on Luzon.

Given previous flooding, the family moved their possessions to their roof before leaving. “We’re scared. We’re here with our grandchildren and our kids,” he said in the sports arena dotted by tents, elderly people on plastic chairs, and children roaming.

Fatalities

Luzon and another island, Eastern Visayas, bore the brunt of the storm’s early onslaught, with one person drowned and another trapped under debris, authorities said.

The storm was expected to weaken as it moved inland.

Pope Leo offered prayers for the predominantly Catholic nation. “I am close to the people of the Philippines affected by a violent typhoon. I pray for the deceased and their families, for the injured and the displaced,” he said on Sunday.

In Luzon island’s Aurora province, where the storm arrived, lights went out but phone lines were still working, civil defence official Cheng Quizon told DZBB radio.

Several airports, including Sangley near the capital Manila and Bicol to the south, closed.

Fung-Wong is expected to head north of the Philippines and reach coastal waters on Monday morning while remaining a typhoon, PAGASA said, before heading out to sea and weakening as it reaches western Taiwan on Thursday.

Malaysian authorities have recovered at least seven bodies after a boat carrying migrants capsized near the Thai border, a maritime agency official said on Sunday.

Officials believe the boat was carrying undocumented migrants who departed from Myanmar, part of a group of at least 300 people that had split between several vessels.

The boat that capsized near Thailand’s Tarutao Island and just north of Malaysia’s island resort of Langkawi was carrying some 90 people, Kedah state police chief Adzli Abu Shah told Malaysian media.

Romli Mustafa, director of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency in the northern states of Kedah and Perlis, said in a statement that three survivors were found on Sunday in the waters around Langkawi as well as six bodies, taking the overall death toll to seven.

At least 13 people have been rescued alive.

Romli said the bodies recovered on Sunday were of a girl and five women, without disclosing their nationality or ethnicity.

A body found on Saturday is believed to be of a woman from Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority, Adzli told the Bernama national news agency.

The search and rescue effort ended for the day and will resume on Monday, Romli added, saying it was possible more survivors or victims could be found at sea.

The boat likely went down three days ago, according to the state police chief.

Two other vessels, believed to be carrying some of the group of 300 migrants who had departed from Myanmar, have also been reported missing, Adzli was quoted as saying by the Free Malaysia Today news website.

He said preliminary investigations showed that the group boarded a large vessel that carried them into waters close to Malaysia.

“As they neared the border they were instructed to transfer onto three smaller boats, each carrying around 100 people,” he told Bernama.

“We have requested the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and the Marine Police to launch search and rescue operations and to look for the other missing boats,” Adzli said, quoted by the New Straits Times.

The Malaysian police force did not respond to AFP’s requests for comment.

Relatively affluent Malaysia is home to millions of migrants from poorer parts of Asia, many of them undocumented, working in industries including construction and agriculture.

But the crossings, facilitated by human trafficking syndicates, are often hazardous, leading to boats capsizing.

“Cross-border syndicates are now increasingly active in exploiting migrants by making them victims of human trafficking using high-risk sea routes,” Romli said.

Syndicates charge up to $3,500 per person for passage into the country, Malaysian media said.

In one of the worst months, in December 2021, more than 20 migrants drowned in several incidents off the Malaysian coast.

WASHINGTON: Nabilah Islam Parkes, a Muslim-American Senator from US state of Georgia, has shared a humorous exchange with her mother following Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in New York’s mayoral race.

The 34-year-old democratic socialist made history by becoming the first Muslim mayor of the largest US city, defeating Democratic former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

“My mom: why can’t you be Mayor like Zohran?” Parkes wrote on X, adding that her mother dismissed her current position as a state senator as “not good enough.”

Parkes, who represents Georgia’s 7th District, said the comment initially left her irritated but eventually made her smile.

“It’s not hard disappointing Brown parents,” she wrote, “but this time it made me smile because our parents finally get to see us be the people we were told we never could be.”

The post resonated widely across social media, particularly among South Asian and Muslim communities, where children of immigrants often relate to similar family expectations.

Born in Uganda, Mamdani moved to the US in 1998 when he was 7 and became a US citizen in 2018.

Mamdani’s victory capped one of the city’s most closely watched elections in years. More than two million New Yorkers voted — the highest turnout in over half a century — giving Mamdani, a lead of around 9%.

Throughout his campaign, Mamdani faced harsh criticism from conservative media commentators and also from US President Donald Trump over his policies and Muslim heritage.

The democratic socialist has inspired waves of pride among immigrant families in both the United States and abroad.