MANILA, Philippines (AP) – An approaching powerful typhoon has killed at least one person, injured another and led to the evacuation of more than 100,000 people as a precautionary measure in the eastern and central Philippines, although the unusual summer storm is not expected to blow into the country, officials said Monday.
Typhoon Surigae was about 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of the city of Infanta in the province of Quezon on Monday afternoon, with a sustained wind of 195 kilometers (121 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 240 km / h (149 mph). It is forecast to move slowly northwards from the northern Philippines on Thursday and then move eastwards.
Vicente Malano, administrator of the government weather agency, said a high-pressure area stretching from China to Japan was preventing the typhoon from blowing inland.
“We’re lucky it’s not landing, because if it hits land, it’s going to be really very devastating,” said Ariel Rojas of the weather agency.
The typhoon’s rain clouds and strong winds of 900 kilometers (560 miles) nevertheless flooded at least 22 towns and caused power outages in four provinces. More than 3,200 people and 43 ferries and cargo ships were stranded in ports after the coastguard suspended the voyage when the typhoon blew closer, the government agency and the coastguard said.
A 79-year-old man is in the city of St. Bernard died in southern Leyte province after falling through a coconut tree, the Civil Defense Office said. Another villager in the city of San Jose in the northern Samar province is missing after going by motorboat to a nearby island to secure his farm animals.
More than 29,300 families or 109,000 people were evacuated to emergency shelters in five eastern provinces in the Bicol region as a precautionary measure. Mayors have said they need to open more evacuation centers to ensure social distance during the pandemic.
“It’s very difficult, it’s toxic, but we have no choice,” said Ann Gemma Ongjoco, Mayor of Guinobatan, in Albay Province, by telephone. She said even churches sheltered more than 6,100 villagers in her city, including many from communities threatened by mudslides from Mayon, one of the most active volcanoes in the archipelago.
The Philippines is a coronavirus hotspot in Southeast Asia, with health officials reporting 945,745 infections and 16,048 deaths.
About 20 typhoons and storms ravage the Philippines annually. It also sits in the so-called Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, a seismically sensitive region often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, making the impoverished country one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.