Typhoon Cimaron whipped a deadly trail yesterday across the northern Philippines, blowing away houses and triggering landslides and floods that killed at least four people, disaster relief officials said.
Hundreds of families were forced to evacuate their homes as Cimaron, one of the strongest typhoons to strike the Philippines in recent years, pounded the northern part of Luzon Island with gusts of up to 230kph.
A 28-year-old woman and her child, 6, were killed in a coastal village in Aurora Province, where police chief Teodoro Saklolo said the winds blew away houses made of light material and wood.
PHOTO: AFP
Saklolo said some low-lying areas in Aurora were also flooded after heavy rains fell overnight.
A four-year-old girl and a 53-year-old man were crushed to death by boulders and mud in separate incidents in Benguet and Kalinga provinces.
In Isabela Province, police were trying to confirm reports that five people drowned in rampaging flood waters caused by the typhoon, which also uprooted trees and toppled power lines.
Manila airport authorities canceled three domestic flights going to the north, while buses and private vehicles were off the roads.
The Office of Civil Defense said the typhoon weakened slightly after passing through the Cordillera Mountain range, and was expected to blow out into the South China Sea later yesterday.
However, Cimaron's tail was still expected to whip large areas in the north until today, said Civil Defense spokesman Anthony Golez.
Forecasters said the typhoon was weakening as it tracked westward, although it would continue to bring heavy rains until today.
Provincial emergency service officials in Aurora Province said they had conducted a "preventive evacuation" of 367 families from low-lying areas in at least three towns hit by floodwaters. Nearly 100 families were also evacuated in La Union Province, they said.
Strong winds also damaged more than 300 houses, while a landslide in Baguio City buried a house and injured three people.
"The figures are very fluid," Golez said, adding that reports from other provinces had yet to trickle in to the Manila headquarters.
President Gloria Arroyo called her Cabinet officials after the typhoon made landfall on Sunday night and ordered school classes suspended in affected areas.
Philippine National Red Cross secretary general Corazaon de Leon said all the agency's branches in affected areas were on high alert.
"We have told all our chapters to mobilize generators because of our problem with power outages," she said. "Our priorities now are those in the evacuation centers who are most vulnerable."
The Office of Civil Defense said army troops, the coast guard and navy were also on alert.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS