close
close

Mondor Festival

News with a Local Lens

Typhoon floods villages, tears off roofs and damages two national airports in northern Philippines
minsta

Typhoon floods villages, tears off roofs and damages two national airports in northern Philippines

MANILATyphoon Yinxing hit the northern Philippines with floods and landslides before moving away from the country on Friday, leaving two airports damaged and worsening a calamity caused by back-to-back storms that hit in recent weeks.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from Yinxing, the 13th major storm to hit the disaster-prone Southeast Asian archipelago this year.

The typhoon, locally called Marce, was last spotted over the South China Sea about 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of the northern Philippines’ Ilocos Norte province, with sustained winds of up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 205 km/h (127 mph), according to government forecasters. It is expected to weaken further before hitting Vietnam.

The typhoon flooded villages, toppled trees and power poles and damaged homes and buildings in Cagayan province, where Yinxing made landfall Thursday afternoon, provincial officials said. More than 40,000 villagers were evacuated to safer locations in the province.

In the northernmost island province of Batanes, Gov. Marilou Cayco said Yinxing’s strong winds and rains blew away roofs from homes and damaged seaports and two domestic airport terminals.

Further details on the damage, including in two northern mountain towns hit by landslides, are expected once the typhoon-hit provinces complete their assessments, officials said.

The new damage will complicate recovery efforts after two powerful storms that hit the northern region in recent weeks.

Tropical Storm Trami and Typhoon Kong-rey have killed at least 151 people in the Philippines and affected nearly 9 million others, mainly in the northern and central provinces. More than 14 billion pesos ($241 million) worth of rice, corn and other crops and infrastructure were damaged.

Trami dumped one to two months of rain in just 24 hours in some areas. In the hardest-hit Batangas province, south of Manila, at least 61 people died in floods and landslides.

More than 630,000 people were still displaced by Trami and Kong-rey as of Thursday, authorities said, including 172,000 who remained in emergency shelters as Yinxing crossed the country’s mountainous north.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has decided not to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru next week to focus on recovery efforts, Communications Secretary Cesar Chavez said.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyanone of the most violent tropical cyclones on record, left more than 7,300 dead or missing, razed entire villages and caused ships to run aground and houses to be crushed in the central Philippines. The archipelago is also in a region often hit by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.