Typhoon Phanfone pummeled the central Philippines on Christmas Day, bringing a wet, miserable and terrifying holiday season to millions in the mainly Catholic nation.
Tens of thousands were stranded at shuttered ports or evacuation centers at the height of the festive season yesterday, and residents cowered in rain-soaked homes as Phanfone leapt from one small island to another for a second day.
The typhoon crumpled houses like accordions, toppled trees and blacked out cities in the Philippines’ most storm-prone region.
Photo: EPA-EFE
No deaths had been confirmed, but rescuers said they had yet to reach the more isolated areas, some in neck-deep floods.
Though weaker, Phanfone was tracking a similar path as Super Typhoon Haiyan — the nation’s deadliest storm on record, which left more than 7,300 people dead or missing in 2013.
More than 16,000 people spent the night in improvised shelters in schools, gyms and government buildings as the typhoon made landfall on Tuesday, civil defense officials said.
“It was frightening. The glass windows shattered and we took cover by the stairs,” Ailyn Metran said after she and her four-year-old child spent the night at the local state weather service office where her husband worked.
The typhoon ripped a metal window frame off the building and dropped it onto a vehicle parked outside, she said.
With just two hours’ sleep, the family returned to their home in the city of Tacloban to find their two dogs safe, but the floor was covered in mud and a felled tree rested atop a nearby house.
The weather office said the typhoon strengthened slightly overnight on Tuesday and was gusting at 195kph, which can knock down small trees and destroy flimsy houses.
Survivors took to social media with pictures and videos of crushed homes, buses half-submerged in brown-colored floods, roads strewn with tree trunks, and coconut and banana plants being shredded by ferocious winds.
The typhoon hit land as millions of Filipinos trooped to once-yearly clan reunions centered on the “noche buena,” a sumptuous midnight meal that is the highlight of the Catholic nation’s holidays.
More than 25,000 people remained stranded at ports on Christmas Day with ferry services still shut down, the coast guard said.
Scores of flights to the region also remained canceled, though the populous capital, Manila, on the northern section had so far been spared.
Phanfone ravaged northern Cebu overnight on Tuesday, and residents decamped from evacuation centers only to find their homes damaged, civil defense official Allen Froilan Cabaron said.
“They were safer at the evacuation centers. At least they were able to eat the Christmas Eve meal there, even if only tinned fish and instant noodles were available,” Cabaron said.
“But even with food on the table, the atmosphere would have been different because they were not at home,” Cabaron added.
“Obviously, they were unable to celebrate Christmas properly because some spent the night at evacuation centers,” rescue official Cecille Bedonia said by telephone from Iloilo City.
At the western island of Coron, the beaches emptied and boat tours were suspended as Western tourists stayed in their rooms to await the typhoon’s onslaught later today.
“Many of the tourist establishments here are closed, and some of our guests failed to arrive because their flights were canceled,” hotel receptionist Nina Edano said by telephone.
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