Destructive weather: Rescuers working at the site after a recent landslide triggered by Tropical Storm Trami struck Talisay, Batangas province leaving thousands homeless and several villagers dead. — AP
A strong typhoon slammed into a northern province as thousands were evacuated in a region still recovering from back-to-back storms that hit a few weeks ago.
Typhoon Yinxing is the 13th to batter the disaster-prone South-East Asian archipelago in 2024.
“I really pity our people but all of them are tough,” Gov Marilou Cayco of the province of Batanes said by telephone.
Her province was ravaged by recent destructive storms and is expected to be affected by Yinxing’s fierce wind and rain.
Tens of thousands of villagers were returning to emergency shelters, and disaster-response teams were again put on alert in Cagayan and other northern provinces near the expected path of Yinxing. The typhoon blew into Santa Ana town in Cagayan province yesterday afternoon.
The slow-moving typhoon, locally named Marce, was packing sustained winds of up to 175 kph and gusts of up to 240kph just before it made landfall in the coastal town of Santa Ana in Cagayan province, government forecasters said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage.
Aside from flash floods, authorities were concerned about the higher possibilities of landslides in northern mountainous region, which has been inundated by pounding rains from two previous storms.
The coast guard, army, air force and police were on high alert. Inter-island ferries and cargo services and domestic flights were suspended in northern provinces.
Tropical Storm Trami and Typhoon Kong-rey hit the northern Philippines in recent weeks, leaving at least 151 people dead and affecting nearly 9 million others. More than 14 billion pesos (RM1.05bil) in rice, corn and other crops and infrastructure were damaged.
The death and destruction from the storms prompted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to declare a day of national mourning on Monday when he visited the worst-hit province of Batangas, south of the capital, Manila. — AP
