A police helicopter delivering supplies to displaced flood victims in northeastern Malaysia, crashed on December 31, injuring four crew members.

Despite the accident, which happened in Tanah Merah district of Kelantan states near the Thai border, airlifts of aid will continue as roads to the district are seriously damaged by the deluge, Kelantan Police Chief Mazlan Lazim said.

The area is regularly hit by flooding between November and March, but this year's storms have been unusually powerful, badly affecting Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang states.

At least 21 people were killed and some 167,000 were forced to leave their home while many roads and bridges were damaged.

The same day, 54 people were killed and 13 others went missing in heavy flooding as tropical storm Jiangmi crossed the Philippines. The death toll was nearly tripled that of Super Typhoon Hagupit, which hit the country in early December, 2014.

Jiangmi, which at one point packed winds of 80 kilometres per hour, hit the southern and central Philippines early this week. More than 120,000 people were affected, of whom 80,000 had to be evacuated.
The island country is battered by about 20 storms every year, many of them are deadly.-VNA