CEBU (AFP) – The fiercest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year has killed at least 12 people, according to the disaster service, as the storm rushed through the island uprooting trees, collapsing electricity lines, and flooding communities.
More than 300,000 people evacuated their homes and coastal resorts when Typhoon Rai pounded the country’s southern and central regions, knocking out communications in some parts and ripping roofs off structures.
When Rai slammed into Siargao Island on Thursday, it was a super typhoon with maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometres per hour (120 miles). Wind speeds slowed to 150 kilometres per hour on Friday, according to the official weather forecaster.
“Siargao island is seriously destroyed,” said Ricardo Jalad, executive director of the national disaster agency, at a press conference.
According to Jalad, 12 people were murdered by the storm, which battered the renowned tourist destination of Palawan island after destroying the Visayas and Mindanao’s southern island.
He stated that seven more people have gone missing and two have been hurt.
“We are witnessing people strolling in the streets, many of them shell-shocked,” ABS-CBN journalist Dennis Datu observed from Surigao, a hard-hit city on Mindanao’s northern edge near Siargao.
“All structures, including the provincial disaster office, were severely damaged. It appears to have been struck by a bomb.”
Datu stated that landslides, fallen trees, and toppled electricity lines have blocked off the main highways leading into the coastal city.
According to the organisation, more than 300,000 people sought emergency shelter as the typhoon sped over the Pacific Ocean and slammed into the country. Around 18,000 people were yet to return home.
“The whole image is only just beginning to emerge, but it is apparent that there is extensive destruction,” said Alberto Bocanegra, the Philippines’ chairman of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Communications were still down in Siargao, which bore the brunt of the storm, and Bocanegra said the organisation had “grave worries” for the people who lived there.
The Philippine Coast Guard uploaded photographs on social media depicting extensive devastation, including roofs ripped off homes, wooden structures splintered, and palm trees stripped of their fronds near Surigao.
Aerial images showed vast swaths of rice farms submerged.
According to Surigao City Mayor Ernesto Matugas, Rai battered the city of about 170,000 people for many hours, causing “serious” damage.
“There was a lot of wind,” Matugas remarked.
“Everything was damaged — roofs were blown off, access roads were obstructed by landslides.”
Officials from the national disaster agency had stated that preliminary indications indicated that the overall damage was “not that enormous” and that “many casualties” were not expected.
“The damage was not as severe as in prior typhoons of the same severity,” Casiano Monilla, the deputy administrator for operations, said at a press conference.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled across the nation, and dozens of ports were shuttered temporarily, as the meteorological service warned that several-metre-high storm surges might bring “life-threatening floods” in low-lying coastal areas.
The country’s second busiest airport in Cebu has been damaged, and flights have been cancelled, according to Jalad.
“The damage is difficult to describe,” said Joel Darunday, 37, a tour guide in the central island province of Bohol who was holed down at home with his family when the hurricane ripped off the roof.
“It was quite potent. The last time something like this happened to me was back in the 1980.