MANILA — The death toll from Typhoon Hagupit rose on Monday as the storm continued across the Philippines, weakening as it approached the Manila area late in the day. 

The number of dead in the storm climbed to 21, said Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross.  Of those, 16 were killed in the city of Borongan, on the eastern edge of Samar Island, near where the typhoon made landfall Saturday evening. 

With memories fresh of the destruction wrought just over a year ago by Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 7,300 people, 1.2 million people were evacuated.  Relief workers praised the evacuation efforts for preventing greater casualties. 

The latest storm was also much weaker than Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest ever recorded.  The current storm continued to lose strength as it made its way northwest on Monday, with the Joint Typhoon Warning Center of the United States downgrading it to a tropical storm.