Typhoon Pabuk closes schools in Manila, kills 1

MANILA, Aug 8 (Reuters) Landslides and floods triggered by typhoon Pabuk killed a boy in northern Philippines and injured five people, disaster officials said today, as schools in the capital were shut down.

The boy was killed when landslides buried his home in a mountain resort city north of Manila while five people were injured when a concrete wall collapsed on their makeshift house in a suburb of the capital.

''Our rescue teams dug a family of five from under rubble at dawn today,'' Glenn Rabonza, head of the local civil defence office, told reporters at an army base in Manila.

''Our teams were busy all day clearing up debris in other areas where minor landslides were also reported.'' Rabonza said Pabuk was now heading towards mainland China after dumping rain in the northern Philippines and Taiwan during the last two days.

The Philippine weather bureau said a new weather disturbance was spotted 290 kms (180 miles) east of the northernmost point of the Philippines and was moving towards Taiwan.

The storm, called Wutip, was expected to bring more rains to the main island of Luzon, forcing disaster officials to warn people in low-lying areas to move to higher ground.

The rain this week has ended a three-month dry spell in the Philippines that has dried up dams and farms and threatened water rationing in Manila.

Storms regularly hit the Philippines. In one of the worst disasters in recent years, more than 5,000 people died on the central island of Leyte in 1991 in floods triggered by a typhoon.

REUTERS GT KN1643