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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS