Typhoon Noul crashed ashore on the northeastern tip of the Philippines yesterday, as officials warned of landslides and called on coastal residents to evacuate to safer ground.
The category-five storm packed winds of up to 185kph near its center, with gusts of up to 220kph, weather bureau officials said.
It made landfall in the rice-producing province of Cagayan, about 400km north of the capital, Manila, according to the Philippine weather agency, known by its acronym PAGASA.
Power was cut in Tuguegarao City, the capital of the province of about 1 million inhabitants. The typhoon was expected to move northwest at 17 kph and head toward southern Japan tomorrow.
“We strongly advise preemptive evacuation while we still have time, and we expect there will be a confluence of events — a high tide, heavy rainfall in the mountains, the possibility of a storm surge and strong winds,” Philippine Civil Defense Administrator Alexander Pama told a news briefing before the typhoon hit land.
The typhoon was expected to trigger landslides and flash floods in parts of the Cagayan Valley, PAGASA said, adding that heavy to intense rainfall was likely within the typhoon’s 100km diameter.
More than 5,000 passengers and about 100 vessels were stranded in ports on Saturday, mostly along the eastern seaboard. Airline Cebu Pacific canceled at least six domestic flights to the northern Philippines.
Officials in northern Philippine provinces have alerted rescue units and positioned relief goods. The government readied trucks to ferry people away from low-lying and flood-prone areas.
An average of 20 typhoons cross the Philippines each year, with the storms becoming fiercer in recent years.
More than 8,000 people died or went missing and about a million were made homeless by Typhoon Haiyan, a category-5 typhoon that struck the central Philippines in 2013, bringing 5m-high storm surges.
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