At least three people were yesterday reported dead in the Philippines after a powerful typhoon engulfed villages in floods that trapped residents on roofs, toppled trees, and knocked out power in southern and central island provinces, where more than 300,000 villagers had fled to safety before the onslaught, officials said.
Typhoon Rai slightly weakened after blowing ashore on the country’s southeastern coast on Thursday, but remained destructive with sustained winds of 155kph and gusts of up to 215kph as it barreled westward toward Palawan before exiting into the South China Sea, meteorologists said.
Officials were assessing the extent of the damage and casualties wrought by one of the strongest typhoons to hit the country in the past few years, but said efforts were hampered by widespread power outages, downed communications and roads clogged with fallen trees and debris.
Photo: AFP
“We are seeing people walking in the streets, many of them shell-shocked,” ABS-CBN correspondent Dennis Datu reported from Surigao on the southern island of Mindanao. “All buildings sustained heavy damage, including the provincial disaster office. It looks like it’s been hit by a bomb.”
Witnesses described ferocious winds that ripped off roofs and forced down trees, while others experienced severe flooding that trapped residents on their roofs.
“I have never experienced such ferocity of the wind in my life and we were not even directly hit,” Iloilo Mayor Jerry Trenas said by telephone, adding that at least one resident was killed when she was hit by a cluster of bamboo blown down by the storm.
Workers were clearing roads in the coastal city of nearly 500,000 people, which remained without power and struggled with erratic cellphone signals, he said.
Two other people died in southern Bukidnon province, where a falling tree killed one resident and injured another, and in Surigao, where a man died after being hit by debris, officials said.
Officials were confirming at least two other typhoon-related deaths in central Guimaras province.
In central Bohol province, which was directly hit by the typhoon, Governor Arthur Yap said that many residents remained trapped on their roofs by floodwater for a second day in the riverside town of Loboc, where his own house was swamped by water up to the second floor.
Yap pleaded for volunteers from other regions to help save residents, saying he and other officials were struggling to find a way to deploy rescue boats to Loboc.
“Hundreds of families are trapped on the rooftops right now,” Yap told DZBB radio, adding that residents were exposed to rain and wind overnight. “We need first responders. What’s important now is to save lives.”
It was unclear what happened in other towns in the hard-hit province, which still had no electricity, Yap said.
Officials from the national disaster agency said it was too early to determine the extent of the damage across the country, but initial reports suggested it was “not that massive” and they were not expecting “many casualties.”
“The damage was not as big as compared to previous typhoons of the same strength,” Philippine Civil Defense Deputy Administrator for Operations Casiano Monilla told a briefing.
“Most of the damage was to infrastructure and houses,” he said, adding the mass evacuation of people from their homes ahead of the storm had saved lives.
Additional reporting by AFP
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