Typhoon Yinxing battered northern Philippines with floods and landslides before blowing away from the nation, leaving two airports damaged and aggravating a calamity caused by back-to-back storms that hit in recent weeks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from Yinxing, the 13th major storm to hit the disaster-prone South-East Asian archipelago this year.
The typhoon, locally called Marce, was last tracked over the South China Sea about 100km west of the northern Philippine province of Ilocos Norte with sustained winds of up to 150 kph and gusts of up to 205kph, according to government forecasters.
It is expected to weaken further before hitting Vietnam.
The typhoon flooded villages, toppled trees and electricity poles, and damaged houses and buildings in Cagayan province, where Yinxing made landfall on Thursday afternoon, provincial officials said.
More than 40,000 villagers were evacuated to safer ground in the province.
In the northernmost island province of Batanes, Gov Marilou Cayco said Yinxing’s fierce winds and rain blew away roofs of houses and damaged seaports and two domestic airport terminals.
More details of damage, including in two northern mountain towns hit by landslides, were expected after provinces battered by the typhoon complete an assessment, officials said.
The new damage will complicate recovery efforts from two powerful storms that lashed the northern region in recent weeks.
Tropical Storm Trami and Typhoon Kong-rey left at least 151 people dead in the Philippines and affected nearly nine million others, mostly in the northern and central provinces. More than 14bil pesos (RM1.2bil) in rice, corn and other crops and infrastructure were damaged.
Trami dumped one to two months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours in some regions.
In the hardest-hit province of Batangas, south of Manila, at least 61 people died in floods and landslides.
More than 630,000 people were still displaced due to Trami and Kong-rey as of Thursday, officials said, including 172,000 who remained in emergency shelters as Yinxing blew across the country’s mountainous north.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr decided not to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru next week to focus on recovery efforts, Communications Secretary Cesar Chavez said. — AP
