MANILA, Philippines — Police say landslides caused by Typhoon Parma have killed 12 people in two northern Philippines villages. The death from the storm is now at least 16.

Senior Superintendent Loreto Espineli said today a family of five died when their home in a village in Benguet province was buried. Another seven people were killed when a house was buried in a nearby town.

Officials had earlier listed four people as being killed when Typhoon Parma hit yesterday, cutting a destructive path across the northern Philippines.

Tens of thousands of Filipinos had evacuated their homes as the storm bore down on the main island of Luzon just eight days after an earlier tempest left Manila awash in floods that killed almost 300 people.

Parma weakened slightly and changed course overnight Friday so that it missed central Luzon and clipped the more sparsely populated and mountainous north.

Still, winds of 108 mph battered towns in at least two provinces and pelted the northeast of the country with downpours that swelled rivers to bursting, toppled power pylons and trees, and cut communication lines to outlying towns, officials said.

Parma was heading northwest toward Taiwan, which declared a storm warning yesterday and began evacuating villages in southern Kaohsiung county, where 700 people were killed in a typhoon in August.

In the Philippines' hard-hit Isabela province, one man drowned and another died from exposure to the cold and wet weather, said Lt. Col. Loreto Magundayao of an army division based there.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council said another two people died from the storm in the eastern province of Camarines Sur.

Parma hit the coast mid-afternoon yesterday, and local officials said the true extent of damage would not be known until communications were restored with outlying areas today or later.

Manila escaped the worst of the storm. On Sept. 26, Typhoon Ketsana caused the worst flooding in four decades, killing at least 288 and damaging the homes of 3 million. No new flooding or damage was immediately reported yesterday.

Another typhoon, Melor, moved away from the Northern Mariana Islands today as residents began cleaning up after gusting winds and minor flooding.

About 2 1/2 inches of rain fell on Saipan in a 24-hour period, said weather service senior forecaster Paul Stanko in Guam.