The slow-moving typhoon has killed at least two people, forced more than 16,000 from their homes and caused extensive travel disruption, according to latest reports. Out of greater than 5,000 ducks, for instance, exclusively about 1,000 have been saved and lots of rice crops able to be harvested in a number of weeks became a muddy waste, he stated.

According to 37 year old Erwin Jacinto, who is a resident of Nueva Ecija’s Santa Rosa town, his farmland was turned into mud as a result of the flood.

As Typhoon Koppu continues to drench the northern Philippines, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency of the Philippines (ADRA-Philippines) has deployed its emergency response team to the Aurora region for initial assessment and response.

He spoke from atop a bridge where dozens of farmers stayed in the open overnight with their families, and their pigs, goats and chickens.

At least 11 people have died.

Soldiers clear debris in Nueva Ecija province on Sunday.

A teenager was crushed to death by a falling tree, which injured four others and damaged three houses in suburban Quezon city in the Manila metropolis.

The Philippines is hit by an average of 20 storms each year, many of them deadly.

Koppu hit land on Aurora province after midnight on Sunday, causing massive floods and toppling down trees and power lines that left many towns and villages isolated and without electricity and means of communication.

The head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlstrom, lauded the Philippines government for its efforts to reduce mortality and the numbers of people affected by the typhoon.

There are two typhoons in the west Pacific at the moment - Typhoon Champi sits just to the east of Koppu.

The slow-moving typhoon unleashed torrential rain over three major mountain ranges on Sunday and the runoff has since swamped the vast rice-farming plains north of Manila, rescue officials said.

President Benigno Aquino III and disaster-response agencies had warned that Koppu’s rain and winds may bring more damage with its slow speed. But Saludes said there was less heavy rain than expected initially in a few areas, including in the capital, Manila, but wind was fierce in many regions.

In 2013, the Philippines was hit by typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded, killing about 6000 people, with wind gusts as high as 324 kilometres an hour.