Himawari-9/RAMMB satellite imagery

(2nd UPDATE) Tropical storm Kong-Rey entered the Philippine area of responsibility Saturday night, according to the state weather bureau.

PAGASA said the new tropical cyclone breached PAR at 7:30 p.m. It was assigned the domestic name Leon.

The center of the brewing storm was last estimated at 1,355 kilometers east of Central Luzon.  

It is currently packing maximum winds of 65 kilometers per hour near the center and gusts of up to 80kph. 

Leon is moving westward at 25 kph and is forecast to remain far from the Philippine landmass. 

PAGASA said strong winds are extending outwards up to 640 km from the center of the tropical cyclone. 

It may also push the southwesterly winds — initially influenced by Severe Tropical Storm Kristine — to bring rains over the western section of Southern Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

No tropical cyclone wind signals have yet been hoisted in the country as of 11 p.m. Saturday.

The weather bureau said Leon's outer rainbands may affect extreme northern Luzon.

The tropical cyclone is expected to intensify and reach severe tropical storm category on Sunday evening or Monday early morning. It may also reach typhoon category on Monday evening or Tuesday early morning, PAGASA said.

The new tropical cyclone is coming on the heels of Severe Tropical Storm Kristine (international name Trami), which has killed at least 85 people across the country, as of Saturday night.

Storm Kristine leaves 85 dead, dozens missing

Racing for rescue

Rescuers were racing Saturday to reach people still stranded in areas made inaccessible by flooding from storm Kristine.

Rescuers battle floodwaters to reach people left stranded by 'Kristine'

The earlier storm battered the main island of Luzon and forced nearly half a million people to flee their homes as heavy rain caused widespread floods and landslides.

In the hardest-hit Bicol region, residents trapped on the roofs and upper floors of their homes were still awaiting desperately needed assistance, officials said.

In the region's Camarines Sur province, food and drinking water were in increasingly short supply as some areas remained completely submerged and difficult to access, he added.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. visited the province on Saturday to inspect the damage.

"Our main problem here is that many areas are still flooded," he told government officials during a briefing.

"We have flood control systems but the amount of water is unmanageable. This is climate change. This is all new, so we have to come up with new solutions too," Marcos added.

Marcos Jr. vows aid to ‘Kristine’ victims in Bicol, wants to revisit Bicol River Basin Project

The death toll rose Saturday as rescuers retrieved more bodies from floodwaters and landslide sites, mostly from the Bicol region and Batangas province, south of Manila.

Police have recorded 36 deaths in Bicol, most due to drowning.

The number of confirmed dead in Batangas has risen to 54, provincial police chief Jacinto Malinao told AFP, with at least 21 people missing.

Two were reported dead in separate incidents of electrocution and drowning in Cavite province, police told AFP on Saturday.

Five more deaths have been confirmed in other provinces, bringing the total to 97, according to an AFP tally based on official police and disaster agency sources.

Landslides

In Batangas province, rescuers were using backhoes and shovels to dig through mud as high as 10 feet in a desperate search for the missing in areas hit by landslides.

Cadaver-sniffing dogs have also been deployed to assist the operations.

Batangas under state of calamity due to storm Kristine

The national disaster agency said Saturday that about 495,000 people have been displaced by the flooding, which has submerged hundreds of villages in swaths of the northern Philippines.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the archipelago nation or its surrounding waters each year, damaging homes and infrastructure and killing dozens of people.

A recent study showed that storms in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change. - with a report from Agence France-Presse