Super Typhoon Mangkhut — the biggest storm of the year — smashed through the Philippines yesterday, claiming its first victims as two women were killed when a rain-drench hillside collapsed on them, while another drowned in Taiwan.
The massive storm cut a swathe of destruction when it struck the northern tip of Luzon island, threatening the lives and homes of roughly 4 million people.
“As we go forward, this number will go higher,” Philippine National Civil Defense Office head Ricardo Jalad told reporters, referring to the death toll.
Photo: EPA
As the powerful storm left the Southeast Asian archipelago and barreled toward Hong Kong and southern China, search teams in the Philippines began surveying the provinces that were hit directly.
“We believe there has been a lot of damage,” Philippine Secretary of Social Welfare Virginia Orogo said as thousands of evacuees took refuge in emergency shelters.
Mangkhut was packing sustained winds of 170kph and gusts of up to 260kph as it left the Philippines.
Thousands of people fled their homes in high-risk areas ahead of the storm’s arrival because of major flooding and landslide risks.
In Taiwan, a woman was swept away by high waves caused by the typhoon, the government said.
The bodies of the two women in the Philippines were pulled from the soil of a hillside that collapsed after the storm’s torrential rains, Philippine police said.
Residents had started lashing down their roofs and gathering supplies days before the arrival of the storm.
“Among all the typhoons this year, this one is the strongest,” Japan Meteorological Agency forecaster Hiroshi Ishihara told reporters on Friday. “This is a violent typhoon. It has the strongest sustained wind” among the typhoons of this year.
After blasting the Philippines, Mangkhut was predicted to hurtle toward China’s heavily populated southern coast this weekend.
“They [authorities] said this typhoon is twice as strong as the last typhoon, that’s why we are terrified,” Myrna Parallag, 53, told reporters after fleeing her home in the northern Philippines.
“We learned our lesson last time. The water reached our roof,” she said, referring to when her family rode out a typhoon at home in 2016.
The nation’s deadliest on record is Super Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,350 people dead or missing across the central Philippines in November 2013.
Poor communities reliant on fishing are some of the most vulnerable to typhoon winds and the storm surges that pound the coast.
“The rains will be strong and the winds are no joke... We may have a storm surge that could reach four stories high,” Michael Conag, a spokesman for local civil defense authorities, told reporters.
As the storm headed for China, Cathay Pacific airline said it expects more than 400 flight cancelations over the next three days.
The Hong Kong government said Mangkhut will pose “a severe threat to the region” as many residents in the territory and Macau stocked up on food and supplies.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told Taiwanese to be ready.
“The typhoon is powerful and even it’s not expected to make a landfall in Taiwan, we should be well prepared and not ... take it lightly,” she wrote on Facebook.
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