Philippine disaster response agencies packed tonnes of food aid, readied a helicopter and prepared a massive evacuation plan in the mountainous north yesterday as another typhoon threatened the country after back-to-back storms killed more than 750 people.
Typhoon Lupit, roaring over the Pacific Ocean with sustained winds of 175kph and gusts of 210kph, will likely spare Manila, but could slam into the north in about three days, chief weather forecaster Prisco Nilo said.
Lupit — a Filipino word for cruel or harsh — is the 18th tropical storm to threaten the country this year. About 20 typhoons or storms lash the Philippines annually.
The Philippines is still grappling with the deadly aftermath of Tropical Storm Ketsana, which struck on Sept. 16 and triggered the worst flooding in Manila in more than 40 years. It was followed by Typhoon Parma on Oct. 3, which lingered for a week, drenching northern mountain provinces and causing landslides that buried many homes.
The two storms killed 773 people and inundated the homes of more than 7 million. Hundreds were still in emergency shelters in landslide-hit Benguet province, 210km north of the capital, Manila, when news of the new typhoon spread.
About 20 tonnes of rice, canned sardines and noodles were being packed and will be delivered to far-flung mountain townships in advance in case landslides again cut off transport in Benguet, a gold-mining and vegetable-producing region of more than 300,000 people, disaster response officer Olive Luces said.
A UN helicopter was on standby for emergency airlifts, she said.
During an emergency meeting yesterday, town mayors were authorized to pre-emptively evacuate people from landslide and flood-prone villages based on their risk assessment. Other relatively safer areas should put in place warning systems and move people out once dangerous heavy rains continuously fall, Luces said.
Governor Nestor Fongwan of Benguet, where at least 288 people were killed in Parma-triggered landslides, said about 500 families still in emergency shelters from the last storm were urged not to return home because of the approaching typhoon. Police have been ordered to go house to house and encourage villagers to leave disaster-prone communities days ahead of the typhoon, he said.
Lupit, almost stationary 1,060km off the northern Philippine coast, could clip the northern Philippines or veer toward Taiwan.
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