Typhoon Man-yi leaves 7 dead in Philippines and worsens crisis from back-to-back storms

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Typhoon Man-yi left at least seven people dead in a landslide, destroyed houses and displaced large numbers of villagers before blowing away from the northern Philippines, worsening the crisis wreaked by multiple back-to-back storms, officials said Monday.

Man-yi was one of the strongest of the six major storms to hit the northern Philippines in less than a month and had sustained winds of up to 195 kilometers (125 miles) per hour when it slammed into the eastern island province of Catanduanes on Saturday night.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. In Manila and offered his prayers, announcing an additional $1 million in humanitarian aid for typhoon victims. He told Marcos he has authorized U.S. troops to help Filipino forces provide lifesaving aid.

Torrential rains and fierce wind unleashed by Man-yi set off a landslide early Monday in the northern town of Ambaguio in Nueva Vizcaya province that buried a house and killed seven people, including children, and injured three others inside, regional police chief Brig. Gen. Antonio P. Marallag Jr. said.

Army troops, police and villagers were scrambling to search for three other people who were believed to have been entombed in the avalanche of mud, boulders and uprooted trees, Marallag said.

Disaster response officials said they were checking if the deaths of two villagers in a motorcycle accident and an electrocution were directly related to Man-yi’s onslaught so they could be added to the overall death toll. They said a separate search was underway for a couple and their child after their shanty was swept away in rampaging rivers in northern Nueva Ecija province.

More than a million people were affected by the typhoon and two previous storms, including nearly 700,000 who fled their homes and moved to emergency shelters or relatives' homes, according to the Official of Civil Defense.

Nearly 8,000 houses were damaged or destroyed and more than 100 cities and towns were hit by power outages due to toppled electric posts, it said.

In the worst-hit province of Camarines, officials pleaded for additional help after fierce winds and rain damaged more houses and cut off electricity and water supplies in the entire province, along with cellphone connections in many areas, provincial information officer Camille Gianan said.

Welfare officials transported food aid, drinking water and other help but more is needed over the coming months, Gianan said. Many villagers will need construction materials to rebuild their houses, she said.

“They have not recovered from the previous storms when the super typhoon hit,” Gianan told The Associated Press. “It’s been one calamity after another.”

The rare number of back-to-back storms and typhoons that lashed Luzon — the country's largest and most populous island — in just three weeks left more than 160 people dead, affected 9 million people and caused such extensive damage to communities, infrastructure and farmlands that the Philippines may have to import more rice, a staple food.

In an emergency meeting as Man-yi approached, Marcos asked his Cabinet and provincial officials to brace for “the worst-case scenario."

At least 26 domestic airports and two international airports were briefly shut and inter-island ferry and cargo services were suspended due to rough seas, stranding thousands of passengers and commuters. Most transport services have now resumed, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippine and the coast guard.

The U.S., Manila’s treaty ally, along with Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei provided cargo aircraft and other storm aid to help the government’s overwhelmed disaster-response agencies. Last month, the first major storm, Trami, left scores of people dead after dumping one to two months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours in several towns.

The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons and storms each year. It’s often hit by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

A man walks past roof sheets suspended on electric wires blown by strong winds caused by Typhoon Man-yi along a street in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, northeastern Philippines, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)

A resident checks belongings from his damaged home that was blown off by strong winds caused by Typhoon Man-yi in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, northeastern Philippines Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)

A resident checks his damaged home that was blown off by strong winds caused by Typhoon Man-yi in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, northeastern Philippines Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)

Motorists pass by toppled trees caused by strong winds from Typhoon Man-yi along a street in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, northeastern Philippines Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)

Motorists ride past a part of a roof suspended on electric wires blown by strong winds caused by Typhoon Man-yi along a street in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, Philippines, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)

Motorists ride past a part of a roof suspended on electric wires blown by strong winds caused by Typhoon Man-yi along a street in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, northeastern Philippines Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)

In this photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, toppled trees caused by Typhoon Man-yi block a road in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)

This photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, shows damaged houses caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)

This photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, shows damaged structure caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)

In this photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, residents try to fix their damaged homes caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)

In this photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, a resident recovers belongings from their damaged homes caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)

In this photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, a resident stands beside a damaged house caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)

In this photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, residents try to fix their damaged homes caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)

This photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, shows damaged houses caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee is scheduled to execute Tony Carruthers on Thursday after his attorneys questioned whether the state's lethal injection drugs had expired and courts denied requests to test DNA and fingerprint evidence or to deem him mentally incompetent.

Carruthers, 57, was sentenced to death after being found guilty of the 1994 kidnappings and murders of Marcellos Anderson; his mother, Delois Anderson; and Frederick Tucker. He was forced to represent himself at trial after repeatedly complaining about court-appointed attorneys and threatening to harm several of them.

There was no physical evidence tying Carruthers to the killings, and he was convicted primarily on the basis of testimony from people who claimed to have heard him confess to or discuss the crimes.

They include a man who was later revealed to be a police informant and told media he was paid for his testimony. A co-defendant, James Montgomery, was originally sentenced to death along with Carruthers but was later resentenced and released from prison in 2015, according to court filings.

Authorities said Marcellos Anderson was a drug dealer, and Carruthers was trying to take over the illegal drug trade in their Memphis neighborhood. Carruthers' attorneys have said their client's “paranoia and delusions” prevented him from being able to cooperate with court-appointed counsel, but the judge viewed this behavior as willful.

The Tennessee Supreme Court said on appeal that Carruthers’ actions before the trial jury were offensive and self-destructive but the situation in which he found himself was one of his own making. If the execution goes forward as scheduled, Carruthers will be the first person to be executed after being forced to represent himself in more than a century, according to a clemency petition to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.

In the petition, Carruthers' attorneys argue that the reason he was sentenced to death was because a medical examiner testified the victims were buried alive, going into excruciating detail for the jury. He later withdrew that claim and subsequent experts have said it was false.

Carruthers' attorneys have tried to show that he is incompetent to be executed. They claim in court filings that Carruthers believes the government is bluffing about executing him in order to coerce him into accepting a plea deal that exists only in his mind. That way, Carruthers believes, the government can avoid paying him what he thinks are millions of dollars it owes him. He is convinced that his own attorneys are part of a conspiracy against him and refuses to even speak with them, according to court filings.

The number of executions in the U.S. surged from 25 in 2024 to 47 last year, driven by a sharp increase in Florida. That state carried out 19 executions in 2025, up from one the previous year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. So far this year, four states have executed 13 people, and 11 other executions are scheduled including one Thursday evening in Florida.

It’s not unusual to see several executions over a short period of time. Last year, four people were executed over three days in March in Oklahoma, Florida, Louisiana and Arizona. Another five people were executed over a week in October in Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, Florida and Indiana, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Tennessee began a new round of executions last year after a three-year pause following the discovery that the state was not properly testing lethal injection drugs for purity and potency.

An independent review later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed in Tennessee since 2018 had been fully tested. The state attorney general’s office also conceded in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing Tennessee’s lethal injection drugs “ incorrectly testified ” under oath that officials were testing the chemicals as required.

This Tennessee Department of Correction photo shows inmate Tony Carruthers. (Tennessee Department of Correction via AP)