Two children dead in Philippine landslide

Two children were killed in a landslide on Saturday as heavy rains battered the southern Philippines, bringing flooding to large areas, authorities said.

The rains caused an avalanche in a suburb of the southern city of Zamboanga, burying three houses and killing a 14-year-old boy and his six-year old sister, said mayor of the city, Isabel Climaco-Salazar.

Three other districts of the city in the southern island of Mindanao were also flooded by rains that have battered the region for more than a week.

In some parts of Mindanao, classes have been called off for more than a week due to the flooding with as many as 37,000 people evacuated, the civil defence office said.