At least 15 people have been killed and dozens more are missing after Typhoon Yutu hit the Philippine on Tuesday, say authorities.

The deaths were mostly due to landslides caused by heavy rains in the mountainous region of Cordillera in the northern part of the country, said the national disaster risk reduction management council.

The worst hit area was Natonin, a municipality in Mountain Province, where six people died after a massive landslide that buried government buildings hit the village of Banawel. A dozen survivors were rescued after the landslide and the military are continuing to search for 20 people who are still missing.

Authorities said landslides from Typhoon Yutu killed at least eight others in adjacent provinces of Ifugao and Kalinga and one person was confirmed dead due to widespread flooding in other parts of the northern Philippines. The flooding has also caused massive damage to agriculture.

“In the town of Natonin alone, there were many there are up to 20 pockets of landslides. But we’ve focused our rescue and retrieval operations in Banawel because of the number of victims involved,” said Major Eric Bulosan, a local spokesman of the military.

The landslides have rendered many roads leading to Natonin impassable, making it difficult for more rescue teams to go to the area. A local reporter spoke of walking 14km to reach ground zero.

Many of those buried by the landslides in Natonin were construction workers temporarily residing in the buildings, according to the Mountain Province provincial disaster risk reduction and management council (PDRRMC).

The Philippines suffers around 20 typhoons yearly. Yutu is the 18th to hit the country in 2018.

In September, the country was hit by Typhoon Mangkhut, which killed an estimated 100 people after it struck the small mining town of Itogon, 200km from Natonin in Septemeber, showing the growing vulnerability of the mountainous region of Cordillera to typhoons.

Before making landfall in the Philippines, Typhoon Yutu devastated Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It was declared the strongest storm to hit the US territory, where residents are bracing for months without electricity.