MANILA, Philippines (AP) – A powerful typhoon approaching has left at least one person dead, another missing and more than 100,000 people evacuated as a precaution in the eastern and central Philippines, although it is not expected to blow Unusual summer storm on land, officials said Monday.
Typhoon Surigae was about 500 kilometers east of the city of Infanta in Quezon Province on Monday afternoon, with sustained winds of 195 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 240 km / h (149 mph). It is expected to move slowly northwest and then head east, away from the northern Philippines, around Thursday.
Vicente Malano, the administrator of the government’s weather agency, said a high-pressure area stretching from China to Japan is blocking the typhoon from blowing inside.
“We are lucky that it will not touch the ground, because if it touches the ground, it will be really super devastating,” said Ariel Rojas of the weather agency.
The 900-kilometer (560-mile) band of the typhoon of rain clouds and strong winds, however, flooded at least 22 villages and caused power outages in four provinces. More than 3,200 people and 43 ferries and cargo ships were stranded in seaports after the Coast Guard suspended sea voyages as the typhoon approached, the government’s disaster response agency and security guard said. the coast.
A 79-year-old man died in the city of St. Bernard of South Leyte province after being hit by a falling coconut, the Civil Defense Bureau said. Another villager from the town of San Jose in the province of North Samar disappeared after going to a nearby island in a motor boat to secure his farm animals, it is said.
More than 29,300 families or 109,000 people have been evacuated to emergency shelters as a precautionary measure in five eastern provinces in the Bicol region, he said. Mayors said they need to open more evacuation centers to ensure social distancing during the pandemic.
“It’s very difficult, it’s toxic, but we have no choice,” said Ann Gemma Ongjoco of Guinobatan in Albay. She said even the churches were used to house more than 6,100 villagers in her town, including many of the communities threatened by mudslides in Mayon, one of the archipelago’s most active volcanoes.
The Philippines is a hotspot for coronavirus in Southeast Asia, with health officials reporting 945,745 infections and 16,048 deaths.
About 20 typhoons and storms hit the Philippines each year. It is also located in the so-called “ring of fire” of the Pacific, a region sensitive to earthquakes, often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, making the impoverished nation one of the most prone to disasters in the world.