Typhoon Hagupit has slammed into the central Philippines, where more than 650,000 people have fled to safety.
The country’s weather agency says the typhoon, packing maximum sustained winds of 175 km/h and gusts of 210 km/h, made landfall late Saturday in Dolores town in central Eastern Samar province.
Hagupit’s winds and pounding rain knocked out power and toppled trees in Dolores and other coastal towns hours before it barrelled inland in a region still haunted by the massive death and destruction wrought by Typhoon Haiyan in November last year.
The Philippines’ 120,000-strong military has gone on full alert to respond to a possible catastrophe.
Typhoon Hagupit — Filipino for “smash” or “lash” — slightly weakened earlier Saturday but remained dangerously powerful and erratic.
Although it’s unlikely to reach the unprecedented strength of Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the country last year, forecasters said Hagupit’s maximum sustained winds could still set off deadly storm surges and landslides and cause heavy damage to communities and agriculture.
The storm was downgraded to a notch below super typhoon category but could still unleash huge destruction with torrential rain and potentially disastrous storm surges of up to 4.5 metres in Eastern Samar province.
Residents fled low-lying villages
Residents of low-lying villages and landslide-prone areas have fled to schools, civic centres, town halls, gyms and churches, the national disaster agency said.
“We call on residents to voluntarily evacuate because the forecast is there will be a storm surge,” Sofronio Dacillo, head of the disaster agency in the island province of Biliran in the central Philippines, said on national radio.
Typhoon Hagupit was expected to hit an area of the Philippines still trying to recover from last year’s Typhoon Haiyan. (NOAA/Associated Press)
Residents of Eastern Samar said rain began falling and their power was fluctuating on Saturday morning.
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva said 200,000 people had been evacuated in the central island province of Cebu alone.
“Typhoon Hagupit is triggering one of the largest evacuations we have ever seen in peacetime,” said spokesman Denis McClean.
Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific cancelled nearly 100 flights to central and southern Philippines on Saturday.
‘I am afraid and scared’
The eastern islands of Samur and Leyte, worst-hit by 250 km/h winds and storm surges brought by Typhoon Haiyan in November last year, could be in the firing line again.
“I am afraid and scared,” said Teresita Aban, a 58-year-old housewife from Sta. Rita, in Samar province, wiping away tears and trembling as she spoke. “We’re prepared but still fearful, we haven’t finished repairing our house, it still has tarpaulin patches and here comes another storm.”
Stranded passengers sleep on chairs as ferry ships cancel in anticipation of Typhoon Hagupit at the north harbour in Manila. (Mark De Mayo/Reuters)
Haiyan, one of the strongest typhoons ever to make landfall left more than 7,000 dead or missing and more than 4 million homeless or with damaged houses.
About 25,000 people in Eastern Samar and Leyte still live in tents, shelters and bunkhouses more than a year after Haiyan.
About 10 million residents of the Bicol and Eastern Visayas regions of the central Philippines are at risk of flooding, storm surges and strong winds as Hagupit hits land. AccuWeather Global Weather Center said more than 30 million people would feel the impact of the typhoon across the Philippines.
The weather bureau said 47 provinces were at risk of strong wind and rains.
Source:: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/typhoon-hagupit-makes-landfall-in-philippines-1.2862970?cmp=rss
