At least two people have lost their lives in the Philippines, as Super Typhoon Fung-Wong struck the central and eastern regions of the country, accompanied by strong rainfall and gale-force winds.
The powerful cyclone caused widespread power outages in the Bicol region, and authorities warned that the phenomenon is expected to hit the northern parts of Luzon within the next few hours.
More than one million people have evacuated vulnerable areas in Aurora province, where the Super Typhoon is expected to arrive on Sunday evening. Officials are urging residents to comply with evacuation orders.
Winds are blowing at speeds of 185 kilometres per hour, with gusts exceeding 230 kilometres per hour, already battering several parts of Luzon with heavy rainfall, according to authorities.
More areas across Luzon, the most populous island in the Philippines, have been placed under the highest and second-highest level of alert, while the metropolitan area of the capital, Manila, remains at Level 3.
Schools and public buildings will be closed on Monday across large parts of the Philippines, particularly in the capital Manila, and nearly 300 flights have already been cancelled.
A video circulating online shows the suspension bridge in the city of Camaligan, Camarines Sur province, shaking violently amid the severe weather.
“The waves started swelling around 07:00 (local time; 01:00 Cyprus time) and when they hit the breakwater, you’d say the ground was shaking,” Edson Casarino, a resident of Catanduanes island in the northeastern part of the archipelago, told AFP. “Heavy rain is falling, and I can hear the wind blowing,” added the 33-year-old.
The small island is at risk of being hit “directly” by Fung-Wong, the meteorological service warned. “They are feeling the effects of the typhoon… as the eye of the typhoon is closer there,” explained Alejandro.
Yesterday, Saturday, some residents were tying their homes to the ground with ropes, hoping to prevent them from being swept away by the winds, according to visual material posted on social media.
In a video, verified by an independent source for Agence France-Presse (AFP), a church in the city of Virac appears to be surrounded by floodwaters, with the level reaching halfway up its entrance.
Further south, on Mindanao island, yesterday traffic problems were caused by flooding linked to the anticipated arrival of Fung-Wong, according to an AFP journalist.
In Sorsogon, in the southern part of Luzon island, some people had already taken refuge in a church yesterday, according to an AFP team.
“I am here because the waves near my house are huge now. I live near the coast, and the winds there are very strong now,” said one of them, Maxine Dugan.
Fung-Wong is expected to bring “rainfall of 200 millimetres or more” and cause “widespread flooding, not only in low-lying areas,” warned Benison Estareja, an official of the national meteorological service, in a press conference.
“It is likely that the largest catchment basins will be flooded” in the country, he noted.
The Super Typhoon arrives in the Southeast Asian archipelago just days after Kalmaegi, which left over 224 people dead, according to the government’s latest toll, and was the deadliest typhoon of the year, according to the specialised EM-DAT database.
Cebu province, in the central Philippines, had the most victims. However, rescue operations there were halted yesterday due to the expected arrival of Fung-Wong.
“We cannot risk our rescue teams. We do not want them to be the next victims,” said Myra Daveen, a rescue services official in the area.
Around twenty tropical storms or typhoons hit or approach the Philippines every year. The poorest areas of the archipelago are generally those that suffer the heaviest blow.
According to scientists, climate change is making extreme weather phenomena increasingly frequent, deadly, and destructive.
(information from protothema.gr)
