THOUSANDS FLEE AS TYPHOON HITS NORTH PHILIPPINES
MANILA, Philippines - Typhoon Noul slammed into the northern tip of the
Philippines Sunday, triggering warnings of possible flash floods, landslides
and storm surges and prompting almost 3,000 people to flee their homes.
The storm hit Cagayan province late Sunday afternoon and was
expected to move north towards Japan, the government weather station said.The civil defence office said there were no immediate reports of storm-related deaths but the typhoon knocked out power in much of the province, making it difficult to get data.
Meteorologists said Noul's
movement slowed slightly before reaching the Philippines, but it also
strengthened to pack gusts of 220 kilometres (137 miles) per hour.More than 1,680 people in Cagayan were evacuated from
coastal villages before the storm hit and the exercise was continuing, said
Norma Talosig, regional civil defence chief.
Source: AFP
SUPER TYPHOON LASHES PHILIPPINES
CAUAYAN, Philippines – The strongest cyclone in years to crash into the Philippines killed at least three people Monday, leaving a wasteland of fallen trees and power poles and sending thousands scampering to safety in near-zero visibility. A retired general said bracing for the onslaught was like preparing for war.Super Typhoon Megi, blowing across the northern Philippines, was forecast next to head toward China and Vietnam, where recent floods unrelated the storm have caused 30 deaths.
As it crashed ashore, the typhoon whipped up huge waves. There was near-zero visibility and radio reports said the wind was so powerful that people could not take more than a step at a time. Ships and fishing vessels were told to stay in ports, and several domestic and international flights were canceled.
Source: AP
On Monday, strong currents on Vietnam's flooded main highway swept away a bus and 20 of its passengers, including a boy pulled from his mother's grasp. In China, authorities evacuated 140,000 people from a coastal province ahead of the typhoon.- Megi packed sustained winds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour and gusts of 162 mph (260 kph) as it made landfall midday Monday at Palanan Bay in Isabela province, felling trees and utility poles and cutting off power, phone and Internet services. Its ferocious wind slightly weakened while crossing the mountains of the Philippines' main northern island of Luzon.
- With more than 4,150 Filipinos riding out the typhoon in sturdy school buildings, town halls, churches and relatives' homes, roads in and out of coastal Isabela province, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of Manila, were deserted and blocked by collapsed trees, power lines and debris.
- One man who had just rescued his water buffalo slipped and fell into a river and drowned in Cagayan province, near Isabela. A woman was pinned to death when a tamarind tree crushed her house and injured her child in Kalinga province, and a security guard died after being struck by a pine tree in nearby Baguio city, officials said.
- At least six were injured in the region by falling trees, collapsed roof and shattered glass, officials said.
As it crashed ashore, the typhoon whipped up huge waves. There was near-zero visibility and radio reports said the wind was so powerful that people could not take more than a step at a time. Ships and fishing vessels were told to stay in ports, and several domestic and international flights were canceled.The entire Isabela province lost power along with 16 of Cagayan's 28 towns as the typhoon blew by. Cagayan Governor Alvaro Antonio said the wind was fierce but blew high from the ground, sparing many ricefields ready for harvesting.
2nd TYPHOON LASHES NORTHERN PHILIPPINES
MANILA, Philippines – Powerful winds toppled power poles and trees Saturday in the northern Philippines as the second typhoon in eight days bore down on the country. Farther north, Taiwan began evacuating villages also in the path of the storm.
- The Philippines is still reeling from a Sept.
- 26 typhoon that caused the worst flooding in 40 years, killing 288. Officials said the risk of another major disaster was easing because the new storm, Typhoon Parma, had changed direction slightly and was no longer headed for heavily populated regions of the main island of Luzon.
- But heavy rain was falling across a swath of Luzon that is still flooded, and violent winds were battering the far-north province of Cagayan.
- Trees were uprooted and power pylons toppled in the provincial capital of Tuguegarao, local government official Bonifacio Cuarteros told The Associated Press by telephone.
- "We pray that we won't have a worse outcome, but with this kind of situation, we cannot really say," he said.
- Parma was due to strike the Philippines' northeastern tip on Saturday night, instead of hitting north-central Luzon on Saturday afternoon, as earlier forecast. It was packing sustained winds that had also weakened slightly, to 108 mph (175 kph), down from 121 mph (195 kph) on Friday.
- The better news for the Philippines was bad news for Taiwan, which issued a storm warning and began moving people out of villages in the southern county of Kaohsiung, said local official Lin Chun-chieh. Flash flooding from the last typhoon to hit the Kaohsiung killed about 700 people in August.
- Typhoon Ketsana last month damaged the homes of more than 3 million people in the Philippines. It went on to hit other Southeast Asian countries, killing 99 in Vietnam, 14 in Cambodia and 16 in Laos.
- It was part of more than a week of destruction in the Asia-Pacific region that has claimed more than 1,500 lives so far: an earthquake Wednesday in Indonesia; a tsunami Tuesday in the Samoan islands; and Typhoon Ketsana across Southeast Asia.
PI TYPHOON KILL 27, WITH 54,000 LEFT HOMELESS
MANILA: The death toll from a typhoon that lashed the Philippines rose to 27, with over 54,000 people left homeless, the government said Wednesday, as they warned of a new storm gathering in the South China Sea.State weather forecasts said Typhoon Kujira has now blown out of the Philippines after dumping heavy rains and causing floods and landslides in the eastern Bicol region at the weekend.
Twenty-one of the casualties were recorded in the town of Magallanes in Sorsogon province, where a landslide buried a coastal village, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) said.
Six others were either drowned or electrocuted by fallen power lines, it said. Eight other people are still missing.
Over 54,000 people remained homeless in 175 evacuation centers in Bicol, it said.
As emergency relief workers and local governments rushed aid to the affected areas the government warned the public to brace for another storm that is expected to make landfall on Thursday.Storm Chan-Hom, packing winds of 110 kilometers (68 miles) per hour, was hovering over the South China Sea around 700 kilometers west of Luzon Wednesday.
"This weather disturbance is expected to enter over the western boundary" of the country by tomorrow morning, the state weather bureau said in an advisory.
While still far away, the agency said thunderstorms and rain showers will already be felt in parts of Luzon, and could cause flash floods."It will grow stronger as it approaches the country," said chief weather forecaster Nathaniel Cruz, adding that the northern and central parts of Luzon could bear the brunt of the storm.
The capital Manila, he said, will also experience heavy rains.About 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year, some causing massive death and destruction.
Courtesy: Yahoo.News
VISITORS GEOFLAGS SINCE AUGUST 26, 2009
