MANILA, Philippines –

A powerful typhoon slammed into a northern Philippine province on Thursday, as thousands of people were evacuated in a region still recovering from back-to-back storms that hit weeks ago.

Typhoon Yinxing is the 13th to hit the natural disaster-prone Southeast Asian archipelago in 2024.

“I really feel sorry for our people, but they are all tough,” Governor Marilou Cayco of Batanes province said by telephone. His province has been ravaged by recent destructive storms and is expected to be affected by Yinxing’s harsh winds and rains.

Tens of thousands of villagers were returning to emergency shelters and disaster response teams were again put on alert in Cagayan and other northern provinces near the planned Yinxing road. The typhoon hit the city of Santa Ana, Cagayan province on Thursday afternoon.

The slow-moving typhoon, locally named Marce, was packing sustained winds of up to 175 kilometers (109 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 240 km/h (149 mph) just before making landfall in the coastal city of Santa Ana. in Cagayan province, government forecasters said.

No casualties or major damage were immediately reported.

Besides flash floods, authorities were concerned about higher risks of landslides in the mountainous northern region, which was inundated by heavy rains from two previous storms.

The coast guard, army, air force and police were on alert. Inter-island ferries, cargo services and domestic flights have been suspended in the northern provinces.

Tropical Storm Trami and Typhoon Kong-rey have hit the northern Philippines in recent weeks, killing at least 151 people and affecting nearly nine million others. More than 14 billion pesos ($241 million) worth of rice, corn and other crops and infrastructure were damaged.

The deaths and destruction caused by the storms prompted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to declare Monday a day of national mourning during his visit to the worst-hit Batangas province, south of the capital, Manila. At least 61 people died in the coastal province.

Trami dumped one to two months of rain in just 24 hours in some areas, including Batangas.

“We want to avoid loss of life due to calamities,” Marcos said in Talisay town, Batangas, where he brought key Cabinet members to reassure storm victims of speedy government assistance. “Today’s storms are more intense, more widespread and more powerful.”

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest tropical cyclones on record, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, razed entire villages, and caused ships to run aground and homes to crush in the central regions. Philippines.