At least five people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced as rains driven by Typhoon Kalmaegi flooded swathes of the central Philippines on Tuesday.

Entire towns on the island of Cebu have been inundated, while cars, trucks and even massive shipping containers could be seen swept along by muddy floodwaters in videos verified by AFP.

In the 24 hours before Kalmaegi's landfall, the area around provincial capital Cebu City was deluged with 183 millimetres (seven inches) of rain, well over its 131-millimetre monthly average, state weather specialist Charmagne Varilla told AFP.

"The situation in Cebu is really unprecedented," provincial governor Pamela Baricuatro said in a Tuesday Facebook post.

"We were expecting the winds to be the dangerous part, but... the water is what'

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