A strong typhoon was forecast to hit the northern Philippines on Thursday, prompting a new round of evacuations in a region still recovering from back-to-back storms a few weeks ago.
Typhoon Yinxing is the 13th to batter the disaster-prone south-east Asian nation this season.
“I really pity our people but all of them are tough,” Governor Marilou Cayco of the province of Batanes said by telephone. Her province was ravaged by recent destructive storms and is expected to be affected by Yinxing’s fierce wind and rain.
Workers clear a tree that fell due to strong winds from Typhoon Yinxing nin Lal-lo, Cagayan province, northern Philippines (LGU Lal-lo/AP)
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 expected path of Yinxing.
The typhoon was located about 109 miles east of Aparri town in Cagayan province on Thursday morning local time.
The slow-moving typhoon, locally named Marce, was packing sustained winds of up to 102 miles per hour and gusts of up to 127 mph and was forecast to hit or come very near to the coast of Cagayan and outlying islands later Thursday.
The coast guard, army, air force and police were put on alert. Inter-island ferries and cargo services and domestic flights were suspended in northern provinces.
Tropical Storm Trami and Typhoon Kong-rey hit the northern Philippines in recent weeks, leaving at least 151 people dead and affecting nearly 9 million others.
The deaths and destruction from the storms prompted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to declare a day of national mourning on Monday after he visited the worst-hit province of Batangas.
At least 61 people perished in the coastal province, just south of the nation’s capital Manila.
Trami dumped one to two months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours in some regions, including in Batangas.
“We want to avoid the loss of lives due to calamities,” Mr Marcos said in Talisay town in Batangas, where he brought key Cabinet members to reassure storm victims of rapid government help.
“Storms nowadays are more intense, extensive and powerful.”
In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages and caused ships to run aground and smash into houses in the central Philippines.