(Adds minimal impact on crops)

By Karen Lema

MANILA, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Typhoon Cimaron, the strongest storm to hit the Philippines in eight years, churned out to the South China Sea on Monday after bringing the rural north of the archipelago to a near standstill.

Cimaron slammed into Luzon, the Philippines' most populated island and its rice bowl, on Sunday night as a maximum category five storm or "super typhoon" -- technically the same strength as Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans in 2005.

Hundreds of families were forced to flee their homes due to flooding and wind damage while thousands of travellers, many of them on the move for the Roman Catholic festivals of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day on Nov. 1 and 2, were left stranded.

Two people were killed in the coastal province of Aurora after strong winds swept away wooden houses while three others were injured in a landslide in the northern city of Baguio, disaster officials said.

After packing winds of nearly 200 km per hour (124 miles per hour), Cimaron weakened to a category 2 typhoon with a wind velocity of 120 kph and gusts of up to 150 kph as it moved westward towards Vietnam.

The Department of Agriculture said less than 10 percent of rice and corn due for harvesting -- with a value of around 15 million pesos ($300,000) -- had been destroyed by the typhoon because most of the crops had already been reaped.

"The damage to rice and corn is minimal," Jesus Emmanuel Paras, agriculture undersecretary, said, cutting an earlier estimate that up to 30 percent of the fourth quarter crop could be decimated.

The Philippines, a major rice buyer in Asia, produces 40 to 45 percent of its own crop in the last three months of the year.

The typhoon, the ninth to hit the Philippines this year, uprooted trees, ripped up power lines and shut schools and most public offices in the north. At least one province was left without power.

Public transport between Manila and the northern reaches of Luzon was suspended. Domestic carrier Asian Spirit cancelled flights to three cities in the region.

Cimaron is expected to weaken to a tropical storm before hitting the central Vietnamese coastline on Friday, according to www.tropicalstormrisk.com.

Cimaron crashed into the archipelago just weeks after Typhoon Xangsane raked the Philippines and Vietnam, killing at least 169 people and taking a heavy toll on electricity networks, roads and crops.

The Philippines cut its annual agricultural growth target to around 4 percent for 2006 from at least 5 percent due to the destruction by Xangsane.

Storms regularly hit the Philippines but parts of northern Luzon are mountainous and heavily logged, raising the risk of deadly floods and landslides.

In the worst disaster in recent years, more than 5,000 people died in the central province of Leyte in 1991 in floods triggered by a typhoon.

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