Typhoon tearing towards coastline
THE most powerful typhoon of the season is closing in on the northern Philippines, where officials ordered precautionary evacuations and closures of schools and offices and urged farmers to quickly harvest their crops to reduce damage.
Forecasters said Typhoon Mangkhut, considered as the strongest this year, could hit northern Cagayan province on Saturday. It was located about 800km away in the Pacific with sustained winds of 265km/h and gusts of up to 325km/h.
It could maintain the strength of a super typhoon when it hits land in the northeastern corner of Luzon Island.
On Guam, residents woke up Tuesday to flooded streets, downed trees and widespread power outages after Mangkhut passed through overnight.
The Pacific Daily News reported government agencies were conducting damage assessments and beginning to clear roads. About 80 per cent of the US territory was without power but it was restored by Thursday morning.
With a massive rain band 900km wide, combined with seasonal monsoon rains, the storm could bring heavy to intense rains that could set off landslides and flash floods, Philippine state forecaster Meno Mendoza said.
Cagayan Governor Manuel Mamba said by telephone that northern coastal and island villages in the typhoon’s projected path would begin evacuating residents on Thursday ahead of the expected onslaught.
He said classes would be suspended and offices, except those involved in rescue work, advised to close on Friday.
In 2016, a super typhoon lashed the southern section of Cagayan, destroying tens of thousands of houses. Mangkhut is blowing from the Pacific and forecast to directly slam the province’s northeastern coastal and island municipalities, Mr Mamba said.
“I’m stressing that this one is very different, this is more complicated because of possible storm surges,” Mr Mamba said, referring to giant waves whipped inland by a typhoon.
The typhoon is arriving at the start of the rice and corn harvest season in Cagayan, a major agricultural producer, and farmers were scrambling to save what they could of their crops, Mamba said. The Philippines has been trying to cope with rice shortages.
Mangkhut is the 15th storm this year to hit the Philippines.