MANILA – A swift and powerful typhoon swept through the central Philippines on Monday, following a nighttime landfall from the Pacific. The storm resulted in at least two fatalities, triggered flash floods that stranded residents on rooftops and submerged vehicles in two villages, and forced tens of thousands to evacuate, officials reported.

Typhoon Kalmaegi was advancing over Bacolod City in the central province of Negros Occidental by midday. The storm packed sustained winds reaching 140 kilometers per hour (87 miles per hour) and gusts up to 195 kph (121 mph) after making landfall at midnight in Silago, Southern Leyte’s eastern town.

According to initial reports, an elderly resident drowned in floodwaters in Southern Leyte, where a widespread power outage was also noted. Another victim in central Bohol province died when a tree fell on them, though further details were not immediately available.

Gwendolyn Pang, Secretary-General of the Philippine Red Cross, reported that an unspecified number of individuals were stranded on rooftops by rising waters in Liloan, a coastal town in central Cebu province. In Mandaue City, also in Cebu, floodwaters rose to head-level, and several cars were either submerged or seen floating in another part of Cebu, she noted.

“We’ve received numerous calls from people asking for rescue from their rooftops and homes, but it’s currently impossible,” Pang told The Associated Press. “There are so many debris and floating cars that we need to wait for the floodwaters to recede.”

In Eastern Samar, one of the east-central provinces first lashed by Kalmaegi early Tuesday, fierce wind either ripped off roofs or damaged about 300 mostly rural shanties on the island community of Homonhon, which is part of the town of Guiuan, but there were no reported deaths or injuries, Mayor Annaliza Gonzales Kwan said.

“There was no flooding at all, but just strong wind,” Kwan told the AP by telephone. “We’re Ok. We’ll make this through. We’ve been through a lot, and bigger than this.”

In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful tropical cyclones on record, slammed ashore into Guiuan then raked across the central Philippines, leaving more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattening entire villages and sweeping scores of ships inland. Haiyan demolished about a million houses and displaced more than 4 million people in one of the country’s poorest regions.

Kalmaegi, the 20th tropical cyclone to batter the Philippines this year, was moving westward at 25 kph (16 mph) and was forecast to start shifting away from the western section of the archipelago into the South China Sea later Tuesday or early Wednesday, forecasters said.

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 meters (nearly 10 feet).

The typhoon, which has a broad wind band spanning about 600 kilometers (373 miles), was expected to batter central island provinces, including Cebu, which is still recovering from a 6.9-magnitude earthquake on Sept. 30 that left at least 79 people dead and displaced thousands when houses collapsed or were severely damaged.

On central Negros island, villagers were warned that heavy rains could cause volcanic mudflows on Mount Kanlaon, one of the country’s 24 most active volcanoes which has been emitting plumes of ash and steam in recent months, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

Interisland ferries and fishing boats were prohibited from venturing into increasingly rough seas, stranding more than 3,500 passengers and cargo truck drivers in nearly 100 seaports, the coast guard said. At least 186 domestic flights were canceled.

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

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Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.