600,000 Filipinos flee homes as super typhoon's erratic path keeps country on edge
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 06 December, 2014, 1:05pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 07 December, 2014, 2:19am
Associated Press in Manila
Filipinos take shelter inside a gymnasium in Mambaling village, Cebu province, some of the 600,000 who fled to safety as Typhoon Hagupit started battering the eastern Philippines yesterday. Photo: EPA
Typhoon Hagupit slammed into the central Philippines' east coast late last night, knocking out power and toppling trees in a region where 650,000 people have fled to safety, still haunted by the massive death and destruction wrought by a monster storm last year.
Packing maximum sustained winds of 175km/h and gusts of 210km/h, Hagupit made landfall in Dolores, a coastal town facing the Pacific in Eastern Samar province. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Although it was unlikely to reach the unprecedented strength of Typhoon Haiyan, Hagupit's strong winds and heavy rain were enough to possibly cause major damage to an impoverished region still reeling from the devastating November 2013 storm, which left more than 7,300 people dead or missing.
Typhoon Hagupit pictured late on Friday. Differing forecasts about the path of a dangerously erratic typhoon prompted a wide swath of the country to prepare. Photo: AFP
"There are many trees that have toppled, some of them on the highway," police Senior Inspector Alex Robin said by phone late last night from Dolores, hours before Hagupit made landfall. "We are totally in the dark here. The only light comes from flashlights."
From Eastern Samar, Hagupit was expected to hammer parts of a string of island provinces that was devastated by Haiyan's tsunami-like storm surges and ferocious winds. Hagupit weakened slightly yesterday but remained dangerously powerful and erratic.
Robin said about 600 families had hunkered down in Dolores' municipal hall, one of many emergency shelters in the town.
"Everyone here is just looking for a place to sleep," he said. "All the windows are closed, but it is still cool because of the wind and the rain."
A Filipino man shelters behind an umbrella as he watches waves lash a coastal village in Borongan city, Samar island.Photo: EPA
Eastern Samar province representative Ben Evardone said electricity was also knocked out early yesterday in Borongan city, about 70km south of Dolores.
Evardone said the strong winds also felled trees and ripped off roofing sheets. "You can hear the whistling of the wind," he said.
"Everybody is in fear because of what happened during Haiyan," Evardone said. "We can already feel the wrath of the typhoon. Everybody is praying."
Big waves had pushed seawater over concrete walls along a boulevard, flooding it, he said.
More than 600,000 people have been moved to safety, including in Tacloban which was devastated by Haiyan. UN humanitarian agency spokesman Denis McClean said in Geneva that it was one of the largest peacetime evacuations in Philippine history.
Nearly 100 domestic flights have been cancelled and inter-island ferry services suspended.
