Typhoon Cimaron battered the northern Philippines with winds of 230 kilometres per hour on Sunday, damaging scores of homes in the mountainous Isabela province.
"This is probably one of the strongest typhoons ever to hit the country," Health Secretary Francisco Duqueso said at a news conference.
"We need to be very careful and we need to instruct our people to make sure that all necessary precautions are being taken."
Schools and government offices on the island of Luzon were closed and people were advised to leave its mountainous districts, which are prone to mudslides.
"Let us all pray," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a national radio address as she warned people to brace for the storm.
Cimaron is the 16th typhoon to hit the Philippines in 2006. It was bearing down on the country's most populated island and its main rice-growing area.
In September in Laguna province, at least 169 people were killed by Typhoon Xangsane, including dozens who died in floods and landslides brought on by the storm.
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