Typhoon Kalmaegi was blowing over the city of Sagay in central Negros Occidental province mid-morning with sustained winds of up to 150 kph and gusts up to 185 kph after making landfall around midnight in the town of Silago town in the eastern province of Southern Leyte

Kalmaegi, the 20th tropical cyclone to batter the Philippines this year, was moving northwestward at 25 kph and was forecast to start shifting away from the western section of the archipelago into the South China Sea later Tuesday

An elderly villager drowned in floodwaters in Southern Leyte, where a provincewide power outage was also reported, officials said in an initial report without providing other details

Ahead of the typhoon's landfall, disaster-response officials said more than 150,000 people had evacuated to safer ground in eastern Philippine provinces. Authorities warned of torrential rains, potentially destructive winds and storm surges of up to 3 metres

The typhoon, which has a broad wind band spanning about 600 km, was expected to batter central island provinces, including Cebu, which is still recovering from a 6.9-magnitude earthquake on September 30 that left at least 79 people dead and displaced thousands when houses collapsed or were severely damaged