(Manila) The strongest cyclone to hit the Philippines this year uprooted trees, collapsed power lines and flooded villages across the archipelago on Friday, leaving at least one dead behind.
The Philippines’ National Natural Disasters Agency confirmed on Friday that one person was killed and two others injured in the storm en route to popular tourist destination Palawan Island.
More than 300,000 people fled, leaving homes and resorts behind as typhoon Rai was wreaking havoc in the south and center of the country, interrupting communications in some areas and ripping off the roofs of buildings.
Rai was called a “supertyphon” – the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane in the United States – when it made landfall Thursday, on the tourist island of Siargao, accompanied by winds of 195 km / h. By Friday, the wind speed had dropped to 155 km / h, the Philippine Meteorological Agency said.
PHOTO ALAN TANGCAWAN, FRANCE-PRESS AGENCY
“We see people walking the streets, many of them in shock,” ABS-CBN correspondent Dennis Datu reported harshly from Surigao town in southern Mindanao island. affected.
According to the correspondent, the main roads leading to the coastal city were blocked by landslides, fallen trees and overturned electricity poles.
Dozens of flights were canceled across the country on Thursday and dozens of ports were temporarily closed, with the Meteorological Agency warning that the typhoon could cause “life-threatening flooding” in low-lying coastal areas.
Rai is a particularly late typhoon in the season. Most tropical cyclones in the Pacific Ocean form between July and October.
The typhoon is heading towards Palawan Island on Friday and is expected to emerge over the South China Sea on Saturday, heading for Vietnam.
Scientists have long warned that typhoons are getting stronger and stronger, as human-induced global warming accelerates.
The Philippines, considered one of the countries most vulnerable to global warming, is struck each year by around 20 typhoons which often wreak havoc on homes, crops and infrastructure in already very poor regions.