A Filipino child walks in front of a flood-damaged home in the ravaged town of San Miguel, north of Manila, yesterday.
MANILA: A new typhoon was expected to enter the country as Typhoon Santi left the Philippine area last morning after pounding parts of Luzon over the weekend, killing 13 people.
The new typhoon with international name Wipha will be named Tino once it enters the country, said Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration’s weather division chief Robert Sawi. As of 4 pm yesterday, the eye of Wipha was spotted at 1,340km east of northern Luzon.
Wipha packed winds of 150kmer hour near the center and gustiness of up to 185kph.Sawi said the typhoon is moving northwest towards southern Japan at 15kph.
He said Wipha is not expected to make landfall but it will pass near the country’s northeastern coastline and is forecast to exit the country this afternoon.
Sawi said Luzon and the Visayas will have partly cloudy skies with scattered rains and thunderstorms particularly in the afternoon or evening in the next three to five days. Strong winds may affect northern Luzon in the next three to five days.
Mindanao, on the other hand, will have good weather apart from passing showers.
A gale warning remained in effect over the western seaboard of southern Luzon and seaboards of northern Luzon as of yesterday noon due to strong winds generated by Santi.
Meanwhile, a major clean-up operation was under way in the Philippines yesterday after Typhoon Nari pounded the archipelago’s north, leaving 13 dead, as authorities issued a storm warning for the east of the country.
The military, along with civilian relief workers, struggled to clear roads of toppled trees and power pylons as they rushed to restore vital lifelines wrecked by Saturday’s storm. “The general situation is getting better, but it would take some time to clear the roads of fallen trees and (electrical) posts,” civil defence office spokesman Reynaldo Balido said.
He said power and telecommunication facilities had been restored in affected areas, although some cities and towns in five provinces on Luzon, the country’s most populous island, were without electricity.
Typhoon Nari, the 19th storm to hit the disaster-prone country, tore into the country’s northeast coast early Saturday and cut a westward path through the farming regions of Luzon.
Thirteen people were killed as the storm ripped off roofs of homes and buildings, toppling trees and triggering flash floods and landslides before blowing away into the South China Sea.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said Sunday morning that some agricultural areas remained inundated, although the waters were subsiding. “The sun is already out, and we should be able to normalise in a few days,” Balido said. Many of the more than 43,000 people displaced by the storm had also begun returning home as the government lifted all storm warnings there, he said.
Agencies
