The casualty toll from tropical storm Chanchu in the Philippines has increased to 37 people killed, 15 injured and 10 missing Monday as the number of people displaced have started to return to their homes, the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD said.

Latest reports from the OCD said most of the fatalities were from the Bicol region, mostly due to the capsizing of a motorboat Mae-ann 5 off the waters of Masbate City last Friday.

The Bicol region posted 28 deaths, 25 of them were caused by the mishap involving the ill-fated motorboat. Southern Tagalog posted seven deaths while Western Visayas, and National Capital Region registered one death each, said OCD.

The number of affected families stood at 10,962 families or 53, 307 persons but those who remained at the evacuation centers reduced to only about 435 families or 2,144 families from a high over 1,500 families or more than 7,000 persons, according to the OCD.

The OCD said the number of evacuees significantly went down " since the weather has already improved."

The OCD has initially placed the damage to property incurred from the weather disturbance at 40.446 million pesos (784,000 U.S. dollars). Of the figure, 27 million pesos (523,000 U.S. dollars) was recorded by infrastructure while the rest were damages to agriculture.

The OCD said the central provinces of Oriental Mindoro, Romblon, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon and Masbate remained without electricity as of Monday.

The weather bureau said the tropical storm was gathering strength over the South China Sea, and was located about 580 kilometers southwest of Manila, moving northwest at a speed of 13 kilometers an hour.

The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 150 kilometers an hour with gusts of up to 185 kilometers an hour.

Source: Xinhua