looking for ways to get by during the festive Christmas season . `` Do we still have Christmas , mother ? '' one crying little girl asked her mother , according to the Red Cross . `` Will I get my toys and my new pair of shoes you promised ? '' `` Of course you will , '' the mother replied . `` Christmas will always be around . '' Military and disaster officials said the vast majority of the dead were found in the port cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro , many of them swept away as they were sleeping . Water-logged bodies from washed-away villages floated at the shoreline , on the northwestern coast of Mindanao island . Five people were killed in a landslide , but virtually all the others died in flash flooding after Tropical Storm Washi , which is called Sendong locally . Survivors in the hardest-hit areas are contending with no electricity or clean drinking water . One woman in Cagayan de Oro collected murky brown floodwater in a bucket , just meters away from where a destroyed vehicle was submerged . Flash flooding overnight Friday -- following 10 hours of
Manila , Philippines -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Tropical Storm Washi moved away from the southern Philippines early Monday , but not before leaving behind a wake of destruction and at least 652 people dead , according to the Philippine Red Cross . There were no public storm warnings for the East Asian island nation Monday morning , according to the Philippine Atmospheric , Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration . Yet authorities and residents still had the considerable task of cleaning up from the devastation and mourning those killed by what the state-run Philippines News Agency noted was the 19th tropical system to hit the nation this season . A report released Monday morning by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council noted that the storm had affected more than 135,000 people , nearly 47,000 of whom were in evacuation centers . President Beningo Aquino plans to visit the region Tuesday . The Red Cross noted that hundreds are missing after entire villages were swept away , suggesting the death toll could rise further . The stench of death permeated the air as aid workers scrambled to help survivors . The disaster has left heartbreaking scenes of families with children