MANILA: Tropical Storm Maysak in the Philippines has been weakened before hitting its northeastern coast on Sunday, driving away thousands of holiday vacationers and tourists from beach and surfing resorts.

Alexander Pama, who heads the country’s disaster-response agency, praised the public cooperation after vacationers heeded warnings and moved away from beach resorts. Maysak brought sporadic rains and whipped up waves, but no storm-related deaths have been officially declared by authorities so far.

Three men separately drowned in a beach resort and a river in northern Cagayan province Friday and Saturday, according to the Office of Civil Defense, which monitors storm casualties and damage, but Pama said authorities were still trying to determine whether the deaths were caused by the then-approaching storm.

Meanwhile, the Philippines has become the latest country to require two airline crew in the cockpit at all times, a statement said Sunday, after the co-pilot of a German plane deliberately crashed it last month.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines announced its decision after investigators concluded co-pilot Andreas Lubitz intentionally smashed a Germanwings flight into the French Alps after locking his colleague out of the cockpit, killing all 150 people on board.

“For aircraft certified for two pilots, a flight crew-member, preferably male but not necessarily a pilot, shall be required to be inside the flight deck should one of the pilots leave the flight deck for personal reasons,” the regulation read.

The authority’s director-general, William Hotchkiss said all air operators must revise their operations manuals to comply with the new regulation. Numerous airlines worldwide have introduced a two-person rule since the March 24 tragedy.

French air crash investigators announced on Friday that information from the doomed plane’s flight data recorder had confirmed their earlier findings that the co-pilot acted deliberately.