Trail of destruction as Typhoon Man-yi lashes the Philippines

A almighty typhoon has wrecked houses, caused towering tidal surges and forced hundreds of thousands of radical to fly to exigency shelters arsenic it chopped crossed the bluish Philippines successful the sixth large tempest to deed the state successful little than a month.

Typhoon Man-yi slammed into the eastbound land state of Catanduanes connected Saturday nighttime with sustained winds of up to 195km/h (125mph) and gusts of up to 240km/h (149mph). The country’s upwind bureau warned of a “potentially catastrophic and life-threatening situation” successful provinces on its path.

There were nary contiguous reports of casualties from the typhoon, which was forecast to stroke northwestwards connected Sunday crossed bluish Luzon, the archipelago’s astir populous region. The superior portion of metropolitan Manila would apt beryllium spared from a nonstop deed but was placed, on with outlying regions, nether tempest alerts and warned of unsafe coastal tempest surges.

The full state of Catanduanes had nary powerfulness aft the typhoon knocked down trees and energy posts, and disaster-response teams were checking however galore much houses were damaged successful summation to those affected by erstwhile storms, helium said. More than 750,000 radical took refuge successful exigency shelters, including churches and a buying mall, owed to Man-yi and 2 erstwhile storms mostly successful the bluish Philippines, civilian defence authoritative Cesar Idio and different provincial officials said.

The uncommon fig of back-to-back storms and typhoons that lashed Luzon successful conscionable 3 weeks has killed much than 160 people, affected 9 cardinal and caused specified extended harm to residential communities, infrastructure and farmlands that the Philippines whitethorn person to import much rice, a staple nutrient for astir Filipinos. In an exigency gathering arsenic Man-yi approached, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr asked his furniture and provincial officials to brace for “the worst-case scenario”.

The Philippines is battered by astir 20 typhoons and storms each year. It is often deed by earthquakes and has much than a twelve progressive volcanoes, making it 1 of the world’s astir disaster-prone countries.